10:3
Kim snapped her gaze up to stare at Rapunzel. A whole lot of “What the Fuck” surged behind her clenched teeth. She didn’t get to word any of it because before she could just blast the woman with words more firey than any of the creatures she could call on, Siobhan blinked and leaned towards Rapunzel with anger hardening her jaw.
“Excuse me?”
“What?” burst from Ivan.
Kim tightened her arms around Gwen’s shivering form and glowered as the others continued to respond.
“Have you done that before?” Prairie asked in her soft voice. She frowned and rubbed at her chest slightly above her heart. Looking down at where her fingers rubbed, she frowned then looked back at Rapunzel. “You have, haven’t you?”
There was a certainty in her voice that raised the hairs on Kim’s arms.
“Tell me how you met each other?” Rapunzel offered the question in response rather than answering directly. “How this group formed?”
Siobhan’s eyes widened and her face blanched of color. Dempsey tensed. He learned forward and riveted Rapunzel with a stare. Ivan drew a harsh breath through his nostrils then gave an audible gulp before tracking his gaze to Ben. Ben met Ivan’s stare with a questioning frown, cocked his head, then deepened his frown so his brows met above his nose.
Abe cocked their head and leaned forward to look at Dempsey with a look of confusion. Dempsey shook his head and returned his attention to the rest of the group and their responses. He focused specifically on the original members.
“I know when I joined. And I know when Abe joined. They came after me.”
“And the rest?” Rapunzel looked pointedly at Siobhan, Gwen still crying against Kim, Ben and Ivan, Dan, and Prairie.
Patti lifted a tentative finger. “Uh, I joined when Siobhan told me they needed someone with music Magick.”
Nodding Rapunzel shifted her attention specifically to Kim and Gwen. Kim felt her gaze burning into her, hot as the flames in the fire behind the blonde woman.
Several fire dogs sprang to life next to Kim and Gwen unsummoned, encircling them. One shaped like an Irish wolfhound laid its head against Gwen’s hip and nudged Kim gently. Kim lowered her gaze to the nimbus of embers around its head then brought her smarting eyes up to look at Rapunzel.
Even as she did so she searched her mind, trying to find the answers to the questions Rapunzel asked. And all that was there was a big blank wall. The harder she prodded at it the more it got indistinct, wavering much like the walls of The House did before the door disappeared into whatever landscape it had opened for them.
The only one of the original group that didn’t display signs of dawning horror, confusion, or denial was Prairie. She just stared at Rapunzel with an utterly calm expression while rubbing her chest.
“How many times?” Prairie asked in a tone that was softer than her usual one. So soft Kim had to strain to hear it and she was pretty sure she only heard because air carried it to her ears. When Rapunzel did not immediately respond, Prairie narrowed her gaze on the other woman and asked again in a very slightly louder tone. “How many times?”
Rapunzel, to her credit, met Prairie’s gaze. “A few.”
Silence again followed the answer. Thoughts chased themselves in Kim’s head just as she watched them chase across her friends’ expressions. After several long mikros of silence Kim unclenched her jaw, swallowed, and asked, “Which one of us broke before?”
Rapunzel blinked at her.
“It was me, wasn’t it?” Kim squeezed Gwen who snuffled into her shoulder.
Rapunzel showed the grace to respond without prevarication. “Yes.” She held Kim’s stare steadily then shifted it to look at Gwen’s trembling shoulders and bowed head. “But not just you. Almost every one of you had some form of break, the worst leading to catatonia. We feared some of you might actually die.”
She gave a forced, close-mouthed smile that was really a grimace. “I’m trying really hard to not have that happen again.” She slanted her glance around the table, settling back to speaking to Dan who had never shifted his stare from her. “It’s a fine line between enough and too much.”
Gwen pushed away from Kim. Her hand shook as she raised it, pressing it to her chest and then her forehead in a motion used by one of the more popular religions. Kim followed the movement. She hadn’t realized Gwen was a believer. Of that faith. Gwen, without question, was a believer. Of many things. But Kim hadn’t realized Gwen followed that faith. That centered around a Creator. A faith that within a few words this Rapunzel chick had blown out of the water. Or at least seriously rocked it at its foundations.
Crap.
Kim shifted her attention around the table as Gwen shakily lowered herself back to her seat and then gripped the table’s edge in both hands while staring in Rapunzel’s direction. She wasn’t actually staring at Rapunzel but at a point beyond her near the fireplace. But at least she’d stopped crying. That was something, right?
Balling up her fist Kim stared at her friend’s head for a mikro then dropped her hand to the top of the fire wolfhound’s head and walked back to her seat next to Ben with the dog leading her with subtle nudges. Fingering her lip she settled into her chair with the hound curled on her feet beneath the table.
“You owe us a huge explanation, Rapunzel.” She leaned hard on the name as she stared down the table at the other woman.
Rapunzel nodded. “Yes. I do.” She looked back at the pile of cards in front of her. “But, as I said, there is a lot I can’t tell you.”
“What can you tell us?” Ivan asked. “Beyond the world you created as a prison is ending. Or may be.”
Rapunzel drew a hard breath. “I’m still…” she waved at the cards.
“Trying to figure out where to start?” Ivan supplied.
“Yes.”
“Well you covered that you and some others used a big release of energy to create this world as a prison for Geppetto, The Blue Fairy, and The Pied Piper.”
“Yes.”
“Do they have actual names or do they only go by those titles?”
Lifting a hand, Rapunzel rubbed at her eyebrow, her expression conveying she had a headache. Welcome to the party, Lady, Kim thought on a grimace.
“Geppetto is really his name. The Blue Fairy is Mary and The Pied Piper’s name is Aleric.”
“What did they do that was worthy of this?” Ivan waved his hand to encompass the interior of the pub but probably extended to the world outside of it.
“Killed babies. A lot of babies.”
Siobhan gasped, her eyes going wide. Prairie fell back in her chair, her brows scrunched up and tears glimmered in her eyes. Patti’s mouth formed on a silent, “What?”
Not one of Kim’s friends was unmoved by the calm proclamation. For herself she started hard enough to kick the fire hound at her feet. It shifted, looking up at her as she looked down in apology. After determining it was fine to remain at her feet, she brought her attention back to Rapunzel who continued after giving everyone a mero to absorb what she’d revealed.
“They were partners in life. Mary bore a number of stillborn children which we speculate broke her. She demanded that Aleric use his charisma abilities to draw children in. Then Geppetto used his binding to hold them. At first they just kidnapped the children but we believe, again this is conjecture at they refused to speak for themselves, that when the children didn’t meet some expectation Mary had for ‘her children’,” she paused to make air quotes, “they killed them and tried again. At some point, we aren’t sure when, they shifted to carving up the children, extracting – this we know because Mary let it slip – the best from each and they combined them, using Geppetto’s bindings to hold them together and Mary’s life powers to reanimate the patchwork corpses.”
Siobhan’s hand rose and she grasped at her chest as she lowered her head and tears fell to the table top. Gwen just shook her head again and again and again, her eyes wide and her expression stark. Ben balled up one fist, then the other, then released them and repeated the movements. He gulped loud enough for Kim to hear and turned his head to stare into the fireplace behind he and Kim. She reached a tentative hand out, pushed through her initial reluctance to touch, and laid it gently on his leg. He unballed a hand, dropped it on hers and then clenched it hard.
God, what was he feeling? Was he remembering his little brother, Chris? Shit.
Kim turned burning eyes and stared at Rapunzel. “Continue.”
“We jailed them. They escaped using Geppetto’s strands which can be used to seize control of people. Several guards were coopted and the three disappeared. And then the killings started again. When we tracked them down the second time,” Rapunzel paused and swallowed hard then hardened her features and continued, “they used the children they’d built to defend themselves and escape.”
Rapunzel looked down, horror transforming her features.
“You were there,” Dan offered.
Rapunzel looked up at Dan, lips tight, and nodded.
“Children should never experience what those ones did. Something in Mary’s power trapped their souls in the dead bodies. And they wouldn’t stop. We had to chop them to pieces to defeat them.”
Prairie blanched white. She closed her eyes and turned her chin into her shoulder, mouthing something that was probably a prayer. To who fucking knew who. Rapunzel? This shit was so fucked up.
Patti turned, her hand to her mouth, and heaved. Sass ran down Patti’s chest, under the line of her t-shirt, and huddled trembling at the top of Patti’s breasts. A note of verse, it sounded like Don’t You Worry About a Thing, seeped through the cotton shirt.
Siobhan just rocked in her chair, tears seeping down her cheeks. Ben’s hand tightened so hard on Kim’s that she had to bite back a cry. She bit her lip and left her hand lax in his hold.
Rapunzel continued in a flat tone. “When we finally found them again we were better prepared. Had more forces. We faced their children again and some of us just couldn’t handle it. My friend, Cerise, just went limp and let the children gnaw on her. I had to strangle the children on her with vines to save her.”
“Red Riding Hood?” Dan asked in a quiet voice.
“Yes. My plants rejected the actions they had to perform. They died and then new sprouts rose from them. They fruited instantly with necrotic fruit that burst and damaged our allies. To this day I have less ability to call plants than I once did. I betrayed them, asking them to do such violence to innocents.” Rapunzel stopped, gulped, and blinked her eyes fast to stop tears. It didn’t work. They trailed down her cheeks and pooled at the corners of her mouth. She dashed them away with the back of her hand and pressed on. “We managed to capture the three, but we knew they’d get away again. We had to remove them from our world.”
“Why didn’t you just kill them?” Dempsey’s voice was rough on the question.
“If we did Mary would have resurrected them.”
“Even if she was dead?”
“Yes. She’d died more than once before that. She, in fact, died when we first captured them. We recovered her corpse with the intent of giving her a decent burial, but she rose in the morgue. And slaughtered the coroner and their assistant before we could subdue her.”
“She’s a Revenant?” Dan asked in a quiet tone.
Rapunzel turned to him. “Close enough.”
The group remained silent, expressions drawn. Siobhan placed a hand on Gwen’s shoulder. Gwen covered it with her hand as she made a visual survey of the tabletop. Patti turned back to the table, smoothing her hair back and arranging her features into something close to normal. Sass crawled out of her shirt and back up to her shoulder where it hugged Patti’s neck in its tiny arms. Patti lifted her hand and very gently laid it on Sass’ head.
“How the fuck are we supposed to stop them if you couldn’t?” Kim figured she was voicing the questions many of the others had if their nods and wide-eyed looks were any indication.
“Yes,” Prairie added, still rubbing the spot on her chest. “I would like to know the answer to that as well. We’re just normal people and you are the equivalent of gods. Or at least how we’d define gods.”
“Right. Not Gods.” Rapunzel seemed to want that real clear.
“You have established that,” Dempsey drawled and pinned Rapunzel with a flat stare. “So, answer the question.”
Rapunzel collected several loose strands of hair from her cheek and tucked them behind her ear. Ducking her head she looked at the stack of note cards for several long mikros then lifted her chin and met Dempsey’s gaze.
“Our abilities are diluted here. Because we wove them into the world to keep it together. Like a net. Which eventually sank into the earth to form its core.”
“Magick is at the core of the earth?” Dempsey asked.
“Yes,” Rapunzel nodded. “Our powers, including those of Geppetto, Mary, and Aleric, formed the core of this world. Mary is the fount of Life. Geppetto’s threads were used to weave the net. Once the net was fully incorporated into the substance of the world our powers seeped out to form what you refer to as Magick.”
“They don’t seem that weak,” Siobhan said. Her lips thinned for a mikro then she smoothed her expression. “Their powers seem fairly potent.”
Rapunzel shook her head and rearranged the stack of cards. “Only in Arfa. In the ‘real world’,” she formed air quotes, “they are diluted.”
“Arfa?”
Rapunzel turned at Prairie’s soft question. “The House you have been interacting in.”
“Which is why so much of the action occurs in The House,” Dan said in a slow tone, like he was putting pieces together in his mind.
“Yes.” Rapunzel’s tone was distracted. Rather than focusing on Dan or the cards or anyone else at the table she looked at a spot beyond Ivan’s shoulder. Kim, as well as several others at the table, shifted their gazes in that direction. Ivan had to turn fully at the waist to do so, but he did.
Standing a short distance beyond the table, where the dividing wall stopped, was a tall man with a full red beard that matched the longish hair brushing his shoulders. He was wearing a flannel shirt and skinny jeans cuffed to show paratrooper boots. Very lumbersexual.
He dug one hand into the pockets of his jeans. The other hung at his side and in the hands of that arm was a sheaf of paper. Rapunzel’s gaze went to the man’s face. Kim’s gaze and that of the others target locked on the paper.
Rapunzel pushed up from the table. “I need a mero.”
“Don’t go farther than the wall.”
Rapunzel held Ivan’s stern stare as she rose from her seat. “I came in here of my own free will. Why would I flee?”
Ivan grunted. “Just don’t go farther than the wall.”
Rapunzel raised her middle finger and tapped it to her forehead in a bastardized salute. Ben snickered then quickly ate it when Ivan glowered at him. When Ivan turned his head to track Rapunzel’s movements Ben raised his middle finger in a more standard salute.
The fire hound at Kim’s feet turned its head and poked Ben’s leg with its firey snout. He started and looked at Kim who gave him a steady look before turning her attention to where Rapunzel approached the hot lumberjack.
Rapunzel turned her head, looking down at the papers in his lax hand, then raised her hand and gently cupped his jaw. She searched his face for a mikro then leaned in and pressed her forehead to the redhead’s. Her shoulders rose and lowered on a heavy sigh then she tilted her head and planted what looked like a big old kiss on the lips framed by his heavy beard. He pulled his hand from his pocket and lifted it to cover the hand Rapunzel still had pressed to his jaw. They remained like that for several mikros before pulling apart.
Rapunzel’s gaze went to the sheaf of papers the man held. They spoke back and forth for a few more mikros then the man handed Rapunzel the papers. He lifted his hand to drag his fingers down her jaw then turned and strode behind the dividing wall and out of Kim’s view.
After following the man’s progress with her eyes until ostensibly he exited the building, Rapunzel turned back to the table. She looked down at the papers in her hands then squared her shoulders and strode back to take her spot at the farthest end of the table.
As she sat and then carefully aligned the papers next to her note cards which in a clear sign of their distraction not a single one of Kim’s friends had snatched up, not even Ben, she took a breath that visibly lifted her chest and moved her shoulders back. She closed her eyes for a mikro. When she opened them, she projected an air of determination which allowed no other emotion reign.
“Who was that?” Ben shot out.
“Hmm?” Rapunzel turned and blinked at him.
“Who. Was. That?”
“Jack?” Her lips curved on a fond smile. “That was Jack.”
“As in,” Ben pantomimed climbing a beanstalk, or maybe a rope, then made like he was swinging an axe.
Rapunzel nodded. “As in.”
“And you didn’t introduce us?”
“He had someplace he had to be.”
“Of course, he did,” Ivan muttered.
“May I?” Siobhan reached across the table and placed her fingertips on the pile of papers. When Rapunzel nodded Siobhan pulled the pile towards herself.
“How freaking efficient are they? We just got Roanne back!” Patti exclaimed.
Dan nodded. “They do seem to be escalating their timeline. I wonder why.”
“Because we’re doing something right. They didn’t get Gryphon’s ring and they didn’t get Roanne’s cloak.” Dempsey nodded to where Gwen had the cloak pooled in front of her on the table with her hand clenched in the cloth like it might walk away if she let it go. “Maybe they need a steady influx of energy. Maybe they think we’ll be tired and less able to interfere. Or maybe they have a deadline. Maybe an alignment of poles or stars or some event that will cause a flux in energy.” He shrugged. “We won’t know that until we find out what their goal is. Until then we can only speculate.”
Ivan nudged his chin towards the stack of papers in front of Siobhan. “Read it so we can make a guess at what we’ll be facing.”
A faint tremor played over the hand Siobhan reached towards the pages. She picked up the first one and read, “Grace”.
Looking up from the page she scanned the faces of everyone around the table. “Ready?”
Ivan squared his shoulders. Dempsey crossed his arms. Abe hooked their feet in the legs of their stool and leaned forward to look around Dan. Prairie straightened her arms and gripped her seat with both hands then nodded gently. Kim shifted as the fire dog at her feet rose and placed its head in her lap. She lowered her hand onto its ruff then looked at Siobhan and forced something like an encouraging smile.
Rapunzel held her straight-backed stance with her hands folded on the table, projecting focused calm. She barely blinked as she shifted her gaze from the papers to Siobhan’s face but a subtle gulp moved her throat indicating she was not as held-together as she seemed.
Everyone else made some gesture or sound to indicate their preparedness. After sweeping her gaze around the table Siobhan turned her attention back to the paper and began to read.
Enter The Woods 