11:2
The vibration of footsteps dragged Ben somewhere close to reality. A figure, human-shaped and bright, walked out of the darkness. A hand-shaped tendril of light reached for him.
In that moment Ben realized he was formless. No sense of his body. Just the dark and him floating within it. Except for a tugging in the region his chest would be if he had a body or a chest or anything except dark.
The hand of light formed fingers. Those fingers wrapped around something close, not-close, to his not-chest. Energy pulsed, flowing into him, filling him from within. This must be what a balloon felt like, expanding under the impetus of an exhalation of air.
He felt a membrane form, like the thin wall of that balloon he envisioned, expand, stretch, grow and then the energy slowly receded and with it the membrane, the skin of him, contracted, forming a human-shaped form from the darkness, a part of it but also distinctly separate. He became aware of himself as a separate entity from the darkness. He lay there, buoyed upon the darkness, and he drifted again.
“He’s still out?”
The sound rumbled through the darkness of Ben, fast and fleeting, there and gone and he really didn’t process it before the dark ate it.
More words came, indistinct. There. Gone. Eaten. Just fragments resolving into ideas attached to the sounds.
His breath soughed through his nostrils, coursed down his throat, resolved in his unmoving chest. He tracked the flow of it, both foreign and familiar. Like he knew the words. Nose. Breath. Chest. Stillness. And yet they felt newborn, like he had no context for them, though maybe he was starting to feel them anchor to the flesh and bones that didn’t quite feel like his just yet.
Relearning his body. That’s what that woman – Sunny – had said? Implied?
He focused on the wash of voices entering his ears, taking root in the dark of his brain, resolving into something more than concepts, something with context and resonance, trying to pick hers out. But he couldn’t be sure if one of the voices was hers. Two of the voices were feminine but was one of them her? For some reason it just felt really damned important to be sure. To establish something about the world outside his body.
He tried to lift his eyelids, tried to put visual context to the words, but the lids, heavy as beanbags full of sand, refused to budge and his lashes adhered to his cheekbones, wet and gluey and just really stuck. His eyes moved behind the lids, tracking the sound of the voices. One definitely male. Two female with one of those sounding vaguely familiar and the other with a lilt whose rhythm lifted and flowed like blood in a heart.
“Sunny.” Whoosh whoosh. Blood travelling in the ears or in the brain or in the dark then another burst of sound-slash-idea-word. “Fine.”
“Soon?”
Whoosh. Whoosh. Swoosh.
“Maybe?”
The sounds of blood and voice played a discordant rhythm in the sluggish darkness in Ben’s brain. Somewhere in the back of what passed for that, his brain, Ben thought he should be uncomfortable, panicking even, trapped in the dark with the sound of strange voices playing over him and yet… And yet there was no flutter of fear in his heart or coursing through his blood demanding he move.
Something like the memory of fear surged from his heart, sluggish as the dark in his head, moving like cold honey through his veins. The fear-not-fear travelled the channels of his veins, heavy and slow as it left the thicker arteries around his heart, picking up some small urgency as it hit the branch of narrower vessels and veins.
He could almost see the surge of energy, riding the blood, bright in the darkness of him, setting his interior to flickering and glowing like a network of streetlamps flickering to light at the onset of dusk. When the shine of it hit the tips of his fingers and toes it tingled and twitched, picking up intensity as it cycled back in a channel towards his heart.
The feeling became an itch, a demand for movement. The back of his hands lay against soft fabric, the texture of it carrying through his fingernails. The blood surged. The tingle intensified. And a compulsion to move surged with it. Commanded. Ben tried to obey. A twitch started in one finger. Just a little thing. But it felt like a huge thing as his nail tapped against the mattress.
Instinctively he focused on the sounds playing through the room, willing one of them to acknowledge the twitch of his finger. Intrinsically he knew it was a big thing for him, but really it was such a little movement. Why did he think anyone would notice it? Yet, still he sought the external acknowledgement that would say he’s actually moved and it wasn’t just his brain fucking with him.
If one of those other voices stopped its flow, hitched, grew louder indicating that one of the speakers moved towards him then it would be real. Right?
But the voices didn’t halt, the sounds didn’t move closer.
“Why are we doing this at my house?” The masculine voice.
“Because it’s bigger than mine?” The familiar one. Rapunzel. The word drifted into his brain, familiar and yet foreign. “What were we supposed to do? Bring them to their own homes and hope they all woke on their own?”
“Yes?”
“No.” The whiskey voice. “And I know you know that, my love. You are just being grumbly.”
“Grumbly?” The low voice grumbled.
“Yes. Grumbly.” There was the sound of a kiss, then the voice continued, “I love you being grumbly.”
“I just love you.”
“Sweet,” Rapunzel’s alto carried a note of exasperation and amusement. “So sweet. I need a dentist.”
“Hush, you,” the other woman said.
A knock. Four voices now. The original three – the low and masculine with a resonant rumble, the smoke and burr that called the male ‘hon’, the other a female alto Ben’s brain said was attached to the name Rapunzel – were joined by a female voice with the rhythm of waves lapping a shore.
The addition of that voice added harmony to the discourse, making Ben aware that previously the three voices had played over and around each other like one of those songs in a musical where everyone was having their own conversations while in the same space and he also became aware of how hard it had been to follow them. Whether his brain was resolving and parsing sounds was easier or somehow this third woman’s tone grabbed ahold of the others and demanded order was uncertain but there was no doubt he was finding it easier to follow the voices and the words.
“The others are asking about Ben. Is there any update?”
“Nothing new.”
“Okay. I’ll let them know.”
The sound of footsteps on wood receded and then the three in the room with Ben picked up their conversation.
“They’re all still here.” The male voice.
“Yes,” Rapunzel’s alto drew out the word. “They are.”
“Every one of them.”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t a hostel!”
“Why are you such a dick? Have you always been this much of a dick? I don’t remember you being a dick.”
“I’ve always been a dick. Your memory is faulty.”
Ben snorted internally. Damn this could almost be considered entertaining. If not for the whole paralyzed and at others’ mercy. Yeah. That was sobering.
“I understand the point of not just dumping them in their homes after we got them from ARFA but they are all better now.”
“Regan! We are happy to host them until Ben is healthy.”
“Mobile.”
A sigh. A shift. “Healthy.”
“I concede we can host Ben until he’s mobile.”
“Healthy.”
The man continued like the woman who called him “Hon” hadn’t interjected. “His friends could go though.”
“You know they aren’t leaving him.”
“A man can wish.”
“A man can grow.” Affectionate exasperation.
“What does growth have to do with ten strangers invading a man’s house?”
“Regan.”
“You are lucky I love you. All of you.”
“We love you too, big guy,” the woman who called him ‘dick’ not ‘Hon’ – Rapunzel, Ben repeated in his head, willing it to stick instead of flitting away every two mikros – quipped.
“I’m going to go talk to Dan,” the whiskey voiced woman said, “Do you need anything?”
“Besides my home back?” There was very little heat to the question, like the man was just pushing the point because he was, as the alto – Rapunzel – had suggested and he’d agreed, a dick.
“Yes, Dear. Besides your home back. Although I do think to mention it is my home as well.”
Grumble grumble, then the sound of a kiss. “We’re good. Miss you already.”
“Yuck. Get a room before I fall into a diabetic coma,” Rapunzel said with a laugh, “Gross.”
“This is still my home, despite it being opened up like a flea bag motel. I will toss you out on your ass.”
“Sure, you will.” A snort. “I’m just going to–” Rapunzel trailed off. “Just. Yeah. You got this?”
A big masculine sigh. “Yes. Get out of here. I’ve got the comatose dude.”
“If anything changes.”
“You will not be the first to know.”
“Great. Super. Fantastic.”
The sound of footsteps on the floor then the click of a door closing. After that there was a mikro when Ben sat in the dark and the quiet but it was soon interrupted by the low rumble of the man’s voice. “Man, it would be good if you woke up sooner than later.”
Truer sentiment, Ben thought. Before he could do more than form that there was a knock on the door.
“Yeah?” the man lifted his voice to be heard.
The sound of the door opening, then the hesitant sound of a voice Ben recognized. It took his brain a moment to associate the image of Kim with the voice speaking from the doorway.
“Can I come in?”
“Can I stop you?” the man asked in a gruff grumble.
“Yes?” A mikro’s hesitation then, “I mean it’s your house and you are extremely large so if you wanted to? Yes?”
The sound of a shifting body, then the man said, “Stop hovering in the door.” The scrape of a chair across the floor. “Here.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m going to step out for a mero.”
“You don’t have to. I’m just going to sit here for a mero or two. Not like you are going to overhear any state secrets being spilled.”
“Gives me a chance to check on some things. Take your time.”
The sound of footsteps were followed a mikro or two later by the sound of a closing door. There was the sound of weight shifting in the chair, then Kim’s voice sounded close to Ben’s ear.
“Hey, Ben.”
Before she could say more something kind of light and kind of warm landed on the bed, pressing the sheet against Ben’s ribs. There was a shift and a shuffle before a slight weight settled against his side.
It didn’t feel like a hand. More like a very heavy loaf of bread.
Ben frowned internally. That didn’t feel right.
A dog? Was it the weight of a dog?
Dog. The image of a fluffy, four-legged creature that gamboled around his ankles, tongue flopping from the side of its mouth as it looked up at him with simple adoration in its eyes swam out of the darkness of Ben’s brain. Dog.
Yes, the weight against his side could be a dog? It was the right size, maybe, and sort of the right weight, probably, and there was something about the way it burrowed into his side that felt very doglike. So, yeah, probably not a loaf of bread but a dog.
The image of a small feisty dog made entirely of flame emerged from the dark stew of his mind. Little head. Pointy nose. Body shaking from excitement. Tail like a whip. Eyes bulbous and shiny. Not wet, which his brain said they should be. But glowing. Smoldering coals in a face framed by very fine whisps of smoke in place of fur.
Chihuahua, his mind supplied the word for the creature. Dog but also chihuahua.
“We asked them to hold off telling us more until you wake up.” Kim’s voice drew Ben’s attention. “So, if you could do that it would be cool. Okay? Until then Majestic Fireplug McGee is gonna hang if that’s okay?”
Majestic Fireplug McGee?
Like she plucked the question from Ben’s mind, Kim continued. “Look I don’t name them. That’s their name. But, yeah, they want to hang until you wake up. Not that the people here aren’t proving kinda maybe probably trustworthy, MF McGee here thinks maybe it wouldn’t hurt for you to have some protection. Again, totally their idea.”
If Ben hadn’t felt frustrated enough being trapped in his own damned body this encounter would have definitely made him feel that way. He really, truly wished he could just fucking say something. But he was lying here trapped in a body that wouldn’t respond to him, with words he couldn’t say caught behind clenched teeth.
“I’d just, uh, go with it?”
Like he had a choice?
“He won’t burn you, if you were wondering that.”
Well, that definitely confirmed the image Ben’s mind had supplied of the fiery Chihuahua.
“But he’ll burn the fuck out of anyone that tries to hurt you. Until you wake up. It would be really good if that was sooner rather than later. I said that already, didn’t I? I can’t remember.”
Her voice trailed off.
“I’m really shitty at this. Ow–” There was the sound of skin smacking skin. At the same time a flash of, well, not light but less dark flared in Ben’s brain. Gunmetal gray. Maybe charcoal. Then back to black.
Bef0re Ben could consider the phenomenon, she continued.
“Weird. Anyhow, I’m gonna just leave Majestic Fireplug with you. They’ll let me know when you wake up.”
A pause.
“Not that I don’t trust the people here not to tell me but, yeah. Okay. I’m babbling and you can’t respond anyhow so, I’m just–”
Another pause. A mikro then the stream of words moved on. “Wake up, okay? Soon? Because Siobhan is worried. And Gwen is worried. And I’m pretty sure Ivan is worried but you know it’s hard to tell. Strong determined jaw and an air of authority make it difficult, you know. Or don’t. Maybe you don’t. And I’m babbling again. So, yeah, going now.”
The sound of chair legs scraping wood floor then retreating footsteps. What felt like mikros but probably was a lot longer than that because it was really hard to determine time passing or not when all you had was empty silence and twitching eyes behind glued shut eyelids there was the sound of another set of footsteps lighter with slight hesitation in their rhythm. Then the shift of weight on the wooden chair and the scrape of legs before the soft pressure of a hand settled on his forehead. His hand was lifted and fingers twined with his, giving his digits a sense of weight and warmth until that moment he hadn’t realized he was missing.
“Ben?” It took a mikro for his brain to put a face to the voice and then another mikro to attach a name, Gwen, to the round face, soft features, and concerned expression. Okay, his brain absolutely added that last detail based on the tone of her voice.
There was a long mikro, then another, then she made a humming sound. “Oh, there you are.”
A long beat then the hand lifted and she murmured, “What?”
In the mikro between her lifting her hand from his forehead and replacing it, the dark in Ben’s brain lightened to charcoal, the shift in tone like a flare of light against his eyes or maybe his soul. Before he could flinch or otherwise react it was gone.
Several more mikros where the hum from Gwen took on the rhythm of a song. Then a gentle wave of caring and love coursed from the hand pressed to his forehead, through the skin and bone, to flow into the dark behind his eyelids and meld with the fluid course of his blood to pulse throughout his still frame. Until that moment he hadn’t realized his limbs were tense; not until they relaxed and he settled deeper into the mattress.
At his side Majestic Fireplug shifted their weight, pressing tighter into his side, then he felt the shape of a small head settle on his ribs. Between the warmth of the small dog-not-quite-dog and the weight of Gwen’s hand on his forehead and the flow of the gentle emotions she pressed into his skin, Ben found himself drifting off into the darkness behind his eyes.
The next thing that drew his attention was the three voices from before – female, female, male. First there was the sound of the door opening then their voices came in.
“Hon–” a note of exasperation in the whiskey voice. “They aren’t going to leave Ben here. Plus, I’d want Dan to come to work with me anyhow. It makes sense for him to stay here.”
“How is that going?”
“He’s an able student. He takes lots of notes, which you know I’m going to love, but he also has an intuitive grasp of the techniques.”
Ben strained to turn his head towards them. He felt a twitch in the back of his neck, like maybe he’d adjusted a small bit but the back of his head remained cradled in the nest of pillow. It was useless. Useless! And he was missing part of the conversation. Which didn’t feel as relevant as being able to move but if he couldn’t move at least he could gather information.
Considering he was for all intents and purposes comatose the three didn’t seem to be holding back, where they’d probably do so if he was, for them, actually in the room. Bright side. He’d rather be moving than trapped in his own body but if he had to be, trapped, at least there was a bright side.
“Are you making any leeway on finding them?”
“No,” the whiskey-voiced woman said, “When I apply my ability I get pings from all over. I think it might have to do with the fact that their abilities are as intrinsic to the world as my own. My hope is that Dan, with his native magic, may be able to parse the data, like a sieve net. Where mine is… let me think. Fishing terminology isn’t my focus.”
“A cheesecloth net?” the male voice suggested.
“Sure. Go with that. But double the cheesecloth. Or fold it four times. That’s a better analogy. I’m catching everything where he can winnow out the small fish and retain the big ones. Or, hopefully, The Three. “
“How much longer before he can?” The other female voice, Rapunzel Ben reminded himself, asked.
“I’m not sure he can, going with the analogy, cast a wide net. We are focusing on smaller sections of the world, ruling them out then moving on.”
“So, how much longer?”
“We’ve eliminated ten percent.”
“Ten percent?”
“Better than zero.”
There was a long pause. Long enough Ben considered if he’d drifted away again. This consideration seemed viable as the next words from Rapunzel seemed to come completely out of nowhere, in no context with the last thing the woman with the burr said.
“We need to give them more information. Maybe even introduce a few of us?”
“Why?”
“Why more info or why the intros?”
“Both?”
“For who?” The low male voice. “Us?”
“Them!” Rapunzel snapped. There was a short pause, then she picked up again. “Doling out information hasn’t really worked in the past and They are getting bolder. Co-opting ARFA.”
Arfa? Had he heard that right? Why did that sound familiar?
The image of human form pierced by multiple golden threads, lit up like a mirror ball, flitted at the edges of Ben’s brain. He focused his thoughts in that direction, squinting through the darkness, and the image receded into the dark. Damn it!
The voices continued, drawing his attention. It was puzzle over the words or just listen and listening made more sense, acting as a touchstone in the darkness, saying there was more to the world than that darkness.
“Just that alone smacks of desperation. Or madness. I would not fuck with that thing.” Rapunzel said. “Add kidnapping people faster. We need to understand their goal.”
“And you think reading in children is going to reveal that?”
“They aren’t children,” the second female voice retorted to the male one’s question.
“Might as well be,” the man grumbled.
“They might as well be because we’ve kept them that way, Regan,” the softer female voice continued.
“Hon–”
“No.” This from Rapunzel, frustration creeping into the alto tone. “We aren’t getting anywhere. We need help. And they’ve proven they want to help. Add no one else has been able to interface with ARFA. It won’t even communicate with us any longer but it’s doing so with them.”
“I think it lost faith in us,” the first woman said in tones of sorrow.
“Faith?” the man asked.
“We broke faith with ARFA.” No hesitation to the response, like it was something the woman had thought about enough to have a clear opinion on the matter. “We agreed it would have control of this construct then we started manipulating the base.”
“We had to. They–”
“I don’t disagree, love. As I know you know we weighed the consequences and decided we had to step in.” There was a slight pause then she continued. “One of those consequences, if you recall, was the possibility of being cut-off from ARFA. It’s picked a new team. Them. We need them.”
Arfa picked? Construct? The words sounded common but the impact of them felt significant. Ben felt like he knew something of this. Not all but something of it. Yet, he couldn’t make sense of the words. They were just sounds. Sounds oozing through the darkness of his mind. Oozing being the word because as he tried to pin them down they just squigged out from under his mental fingers.
The voices continued. Ben focused on them realizing, based on context, he’d missed some of the conversation while focusing on his thoughts.
“You said you fucked up the read in,” the male voice said.
“Regan!” This came from the woman with the burr in her voice.
“What? That’s what she said. She fucked it up.”
“I didn’t so much fuck it up as I…” the alto voice trailed off.
Frustration at the lack of visual context pushed Ben to try to lift his eyelids again. To the same results. He internally grunted.
The voices tapered off. “Did you hear?”
The lilting voice drew nearer.
“Maybe?” The alto sounded close to Ben’s ear.
Had they? Heard him? Had he actually grunted aloud not just in his head?
“Doesn’t look like he’s moved.” A finger, probably Rapunzel’s based on the voice closest to his ear, poked his cheek. Ben willed his jaw to twitch. Or his eye. But, nope, nothing.
“Too much to hope.” The male voice rumbled.
Darkness flowed into Ben’s ears, making the next words from the whiskey-voiced woman muffled. “Hon–”
Ben tried to push his brain to focus but lethargy oozed from his head and down his quiescent limbs, dragging him into the darkness again. He floated for a while between waking and sleeping, just sort of being. It felt good. Comfortable. But also not good because he could easily imagine just drifting in it forever. The thought caused a flutter in his heart and the need to move seized him. Before it could really settle there was the sound of footsteps somewhere to the side of him and then the sound of chair legs scraping before the rustle of cloth indicated someone taking a seat.
“Oh, hey,” a smoky voice with a subtle vibrato flowed into Ben’s ear. The voice had weight, intensity. You’d almost say Magick. As that thought settled in his brain, pushed along by the feel of the voice flowing from his ear and over his brain with a liquid movement that smoothed out rough edges in the matter he hadn’t even realized was there before the voice did its thing, the name Patti and the image he’d previously conjured to connect to the name swam up from the depths of the dark making up his brain.
Patti. Yes, that felt right. Patti with Magick in her voice. The feeling buffeting his brain made sense.
“No, Sass, leave the doggo b–” her voice blended with a small squeak coming from the region of Ben’s chest where the lump of heat that was, far as he could figure, a fire elemental in the shape of a chihuahua with the somehow apropos name of Majestic Fireplug snuggled over his heart, the almost imperceptible pulsation of a fire’s subtle rhythm all pops and whooshes seeping through his skin and into his heart so that organ pumped to it.
Another squeak and he felt small feet skitter over his chest before a weight settled on his shoulder and a small hand gripped his earlobe. Then the press of fur and the slight wetness of a small nose poked him directly in the ear canal, causing him to flinch.
“Ben?” Patti’s voice rose an octave. “Ben!”
Ben tried to twitch or lift an eyelid or pretty much do anything to acknowledge her query, but his body locked down and all he could do was lay there and will her to sense his focus.
“Did he move, Sass?”
A peep sounded near Ben’s ear.
“Yeah. I’m not sure either.”
A hum vibrated against the skin of Ben’s ear, tickling. Patti picked up the sound, humming along with Sass for a bar, before starting to sing, “Pineapples are in my head.”
Pineapples? An image of a vaguely cylindrical object resolved into a loaf shaped fruit with yellow-green scales, tipped with prickers, with a spray of blade like leaves at the top. Was that right? Pineapples? In her head? His brain balked at the image. It felt wrong. But, also right?
She shifted to singing something about being brain dead. Which Ben thought felt kinda insensitive considering his mental state or lack thereof.
Before he could probe further at the idea, Sass’ hum picked up then shifted to form the same words, singing along with Patti in a delicate little soprano.
Sass sang? Ben poked at the idea with his brain even as he felt himself relaxing beneath the combined Magick of Sass and Patti’s voices. Mouses. No, mices. No, mice. Mice. Mice didn’t sing. Did they? Or did they?
His mind wanted to worry more at the thought but the Magick twining Sass and Patti’s voices drifted over his brain, a soothing brush that told his brain to shut up and just listen. So, he did.
As he did a glow formed far, far on the horizon of his brainscape. Just a crack of light, far distant, hardly discernable against the gloom. Not bright. Not demanding. Just there. Ben’s brain strained to bring it into better focus but it remained there, way out there, and it didn’t get brighter or clearer or closer. But it was something. Something other than the encompassing darkness and it whispered over his sense, hope of something more.
He relaxed into the sound of Sass and Patti and the Magick they wove and drifted away, buoyed and floating on a cushion of darkness.
How long he drifted was questionable. Time was an anchor for a body not a mind or darkness or whatever it was he was. A soul? Perhaps a soul. Concepts still were difficult. The more he tried to put a finger on them the more they became eels, squirming away.
He was vaguely aware of activity around him, movement and sound, smells and the touch of air on his skin, these things translating like pencil sketches in his mind’s eye, all loose lines and vague impressions of graphite. Scritchy. Scratchy. Scritches.
The only things that were solid were the press of linen on his limbs, made more manifest by the one other constant, the weight of a small dog made of heat and small crackling sounds shifting subtly and dragging or draping or otherwise dislodging the linens against Ben’s form.
That weight shifted a moment before the sound of the door opening came to his right and then the displacement of air flowed over him, pushed by the door. In chorus with this came the sound of two voices, Kim and Rapunzel. He concentrated, focusing on the rise and fall of the voices, the sounds not quite parsing into words, as they drew nearer to the bed.
*
Kim reached her Magick out to the fire dog nestled against Ben. It perked at the touch and shifted its head subtly so it could meet her eyes.
Is he any better? she asked.
At first the reply was a crackle and a hiss then subtly shifted to encompass something like words weaving through the rhythm of fire. Better? Define?
Less dead?
Not dead. Never dead. The words became more word-like for lack of a better term. The image of a coal, dark on the surface but with a glowing crack hinting at a fire within formed in her mind.
She frowned. What does that mean?
Mean?
The coal.
Does coal mean?
She pushed the image back at the dog. You gave me the image. Why?
He is coal. Coal is he.
Could you be a little clearer?
Clearer?
More defined.
The dog shifted against Ben. Cocked its head. Eyed Kim. Then shifted to look at itself. Am not defined?
Kim closed her eyes and sought to better clarify her own thought, breaking it down in a way that would make sense to Fire.
Two meanings. You are defined physically, true, but I ask you to more clearly explain the image. Again, she pushed the picture of coal back on the dog.
He is coal. Matter that burned and is now dark but there is fire within.
Fire within that grows?
Fire that is banked.
Banked fire must be fed.
And is being so.
By you?
There was a long pause as the dog eyed Kim. No.
Kim frowned. Started to try to press for more clarity but the dog turned, presenting its ass to her as it snuggled its head against Ben’s ribs.
“Anything?”
Rapunzel’s voice pulled Kim out of her contemplation of fire dog butt. She turned with a snort. “Cryptic bullshit.”
The ass facing her raised more, effectively revealing that the dog was male. Kim snorted again and shook her head. “Vague imagery and a vaguer explanation which is open to interpretation.”
“Like?”
“Like Ben burned himself out, which I think we’ve guessed, but he has a fire inside. Banked, but there.”
Dropping into the chair next to Ben’s bed, she shoved her hair behind her ear then smoothed the length down her neck. Rapunzel followed the movement. Her expression clouded for a moment then cleared.
“Your tattoo?”
Well, that was a conversational pivot. “Tattoo?”
“Yeah. The black fingerprint. I noticed it the other day. All of you have one. Grabbed my attention but everything was too,” A pause, a burr noise caused by a rolled tongue accompanied by a spinning finger to illustrate,
“It’s not the usual image most people pick. I figured since you all had one, in the same place, it had to mean something.” She pushed up her sleeve to reveal another sleeve beneath, one made of colorful ink. It consisted of stylized vines, random breaks in the leaves revealing small items entwined in the leaves. She tapped one of these items, a thimble. “Like, this one’s for Fay.”
“Fay?”
“My friend. You might know her as Thumbelina?”
“Thumbelina? She’s real?” Wait. No. Back on point. “I don’t have a tattoo.”
“Yeah. You do.” Rapunzel’s expression questioned Kim’s mental state. “Behind your ear.”
Kim slapped a hand to her neck on the right. Like she could feel a tattoo. Then lifted her other hand and slapped it on the left. Then jerked a look at Rapunzel. “Where?”
Rapunzel very slowly lifted a hand and pointed her finger at the left hand. “There.”
Kim pressed her finger to where her jawbone ended below her earlobe. “Here?”
Rapunzel leaned in. “Yes. Right–” she trailed off. “Huh.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t have a tattoo.”
“I told you.”
“You had a tattoo yesterday. A fingerprint.”
“Maybe it was a bruise.”
“A bruise you all have in the same place?”
“It’s possible.” Maybe?
“Really?” Kim thought she did droll well but this chick had to be the mother of droll.
“As possible as a disappearing tattoo. You said everyone has one?”
“Last I looked, yeah. Everyone in your group.”
“When did you see it?”
“Yours?”
“No, the bartender at Leo’s.”
“That’s Patti.”
“You are really hard to talk to.”
“Right back at you.” Rapunzel crossed her arms. “I saw yours yesterday. When you brought this menace in.”
She lifted her chin to indicate the fire dog curled up against Ben. MF McGee lifted its head, curled its upper lip back from its teeth, and made a purping noise. Rapunzel gave a sheepish look. “Uh, sorry about the menace?”
The dog gave the equivalent of a shrug and dropped its head back onto Ben’s ribs, leaving Kim to wave it off. “They like it. Menace may be added to their pedigree name. You were saying?”
“I kind of noticed it when you were carried in, but, again hectic.” She flailed her hand on the air to emphasize, “But I for sure saw it when you sat down next to Ben and the Menace,” another purp, “jumped on the bed.”
Kim rubbed the skin behind her ear. “Yeah.” She thought back, recalling something. Something. Fuck, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Finger on it. Snort. She fingered her earlobe and willed the something into focus. Yep. Nope. Fuck. “You said you saw it on the others?”
“Yes.” Rapunzel drew out the word.
“Hold on.” She lifted a finger before pushing up from her chair. MF McGee lifted its head subtly from Ben’s side and gave her a look. Patting the air, she motioned it back to its resting position and walked over to the door. Rapunzel turned to follow her motion as she yanked the door open and poked her head into the hall.
Her gaze skittered along the wall, stopping on Dan propping it up with his attention intent on the book he held in his hand. He stopped scratching his pencil on the page and looked at her, expression alert.
“Dan?” Kim crooked a finger at him. His gaze followed the movement.
“Yeah?”
“Can I see behind your ear?”
For a mikro his look questioned her, then he stuck his book in his vest pocket and sidled over so he could tip his head for her inspection. She craned her neck to get a good look behind his right ear. At the smudge of a fingerprint. “Well, shit.”
His brow lowered. “What?”
Kim gave the fingerprint another mikro’s stare then stepped back and waved his concern aside with a quick hand. “I’ll explain in a mikro.”
He lifted his brows. “Or you could explain now.”
“Or I could,” she leaned on the word, “explain now. But I’m not going to.”
His brows threatened to meet his hairline. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed heavily. Bef0re he could say anything else Kim fumbled forward. “Can you grab any of our group that’s around?”
“And then you’ll explain?”
“And then I’ll explain.” She frowned. “Maybe.” She waved a hand, “I mean I’ll explain why I asked, but I may not be able to explain why I asked.”
He responded to the hesitance in her voice with another sigh then buttoned the pocket of his vest where he’d stored his book. “Okay. Siobhan just got back from work. Prairie is still at the hospital and Ivan hasn’t gotten back from Town Hall yet.”
Kim nodded. “Just anyone who is here. For now.”
She frowned again and turned her head to eye the fingerprint behind his ear. He followed the direction of her gaze then slapped a hand to his neck; with a frown to match hers.
“Then you’ll explain.”
“Yes.”
Dan heaved a deep sigh then pushed away from the wall. He strode down the long hall, his booted steps heavy on the wood floor. A mikro later he disappeared from view as he descended the sweeping stairs that sat square in the center of the hall.
Kim tossed a look over her shoulder, meeting Rapunzel’s gaze, then turned back to watch for Dan’s return. About a mero passed and he returned with Patti, Dempsey, and Siobhan in tow. Siobhan cocked her head, her gaze searching Kim’s face as she drew near.
“What’s wrong?”
“Who said something is wrong?”
“Dan did.”
“He did?”
“No,” Dempsey drawled, taking up position just behind Siobhan, legs spread, feet planted, and arms crossed over his broad chest. “He didn’t.”
Patti slid up beside Dempsey, bumping his hip with hers. Her gaze sought out Kim. “What’s up?”
Kim scratched her jaw, fingers lingering in the hollow behind her ear before she lowered her hand and gave a sheepish shrug. “I need to see your necks.”
“Weird,” Patti said, “but okay?” She turned her head to the side and flared her hand next to it. “Neck.”
Kim craned, trying to get a look, but the light in the hall, soft from evenly spaced sconces along the wall, was a bit too dim to really get a good look without being up all in Patti’s business like she’d done to Dan. “Come into Ben’s room.”
It was already Ben’s room, despite it not being Ben’s house. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. Sometime between them all being carried in as Rapunzel had implied – said, whatever – and now they’d all gotten comfortable in the ridiculous McMansion owned by Regan and Maise.
Well, not a McMansion, it wasn’t some prefab monstrosity but instead had an ageless grace. Mansion was better. Castle, really, was the right term with its large manse set in a yard that could only be called a park, square stone walls protecting it. It had an actual drawbridge, for elements’ sake! Ten bedrooms – she’d counted – a media room, a state-of-the-art kitchen all ten of her crew could stand in and not bump shoulders, a freaking music room that Patti had called dibs on within the first day. And a sense of gravitas that only came with time.
Solid. Safe. The antithesis of the little paper houses she built at work. If she could have dreamed of a place for Ben to convalesce she couldn’t have come up with a better one.
It was super easy. Freakishly so. Normally she’d be wary in a new environment but there was something about the place and the people in it – Regan and Maise but also Rapunzel, her red-headed partner Jack, Sunny who seemed to be a healer, and a rotating group of others who lingered less time but who were there when she’d first woken up in a ridiculously soft bed fit for a princess with a boxy canopy, darkened by pulled brocade curtains.
The faces all kind of blurred together, probably a residual of whatever had knocked her the fuck out and made her brain a bit wibbly wobbly, but she very much remembered a mix of genders and distinct voices. And the names they called each other.
A very pale female with dark hair and blue eyes was Nyx. A creamy skinned one with almost unbelievably gorgeous auburn hair and a laugh in her voice answered to Cerise. Tod was, Kim was pretty sure, another healer, wearing scrubs. Kim recalled that detail because she wondered if Prairie knew him. His features kind of blurred and she was fairly sure his hair was brown, but those scrubs stuck in her memory. There was also someone named Sirena whose voice reminded Kim of Patti’s somehow. Something about the resonance, the sense of Magick. But she definitely didn’t remember that one’s face or body or any real impression beyond “wow” on the voice.
They were all pretty – or handsome or whatever word translated to ‘stutter upon meeting’ – and some were downright staggering. More so than their attractive features though what really caught you was the confidence they all exuded. Like they knew the workings of the universe, which when you thought about it for a mikro made a butt ton of sense.
None of them were there consistently beyond the first day, slipping away with murmured promises to the “main people” as Kim had decided to dub them.
A snap in her ear drew Kim’s attention and she turned to focus on Siobhan who lifted her brows and blinked slowly. “Where’d you go? Narnia?”
Kim chuckled. “No wardrobe.”
Siobhan tilted her head, indicating the door to Ben’s room. Kim nodded for Siobhan to enter first then she followed her friend in. Dempsey, Dan, and Patti had taken up stances just beyond the door in a loose crescent. Seeing Kim enter Patti pointed at her neck.
Kim nodded then took the invitation, sidling up next to Patti to look behind her right ear, figuring it made sense as that was where Rapunzel had indicated her disappearing tattoo had been and where Dan’s skin showed the mark of a finger.
Nothing. There was nothing but smooth skin behind Patti’s ear. To be safe Kim shifted and looked behind Patti’s left ear. Patti followed her movement with a frown.
“Thanks,” she murmured to Patti who gave her a dubious look but kept the question in her eyes instead of on her lips.
She pivoted and went up on tiptoe to look behind Dempsey’s right ear, her stomach tightening as her eyes registered the black fingerprint there. “Shit.”
Sucking in a deep breath in through her nose she moved to look at Siobhan’s neck. Siobhan turned her head to eye Kim, which effectively obscured the space behind her ear. Kim, finding words not wording well, flicked her finger to indicate Siobhan turn her head. Siobhan gave her that “mom look” she had, then complied, revealing the dark smudge of a fingerprint behind her ear.
“Shit.”
Siobhan gave her a hard look. “What?”
Kim huffed a breath threw her nose and rocked back from Siobhan then took several steps as she considered the marks.
All the prints differed slightly in size, but not by much. The one behind Dempsey’s ear was slightly narrower than the one behind Dan’s and the one behind Siobhan’s was wider, like maybe it was made by a thumb. It was also at a slight diagonal where the ones on Dempsey’s and Dan’s were vertical.
Kim scrubbed her hand over her forehead, shoving her bangs back, as she stepped back from Siobhan. Dan, Dempsey, Siobhan. They had fingerprints. Patti didn’t. She frowned as she considered it.
Her gaze shifted between the four, her brain ticking over the possibilities but settling on nothing. What was the difference? And did Ivan, Prairie, Abe, and Gwen have them? Without all the data she just couldn’t start to extrapolate a possible explanation.
Dan shifted his toothpick, left to right, then lifted his brows. “Explain.”
Kim nodded and let go of her bangs. They remained standing up. She didn’t smooth them. She drew a sharp breath, held it, then let it out on a huff.
She sought out Rapunzel with her gaze. “Patti doesn’t have one but Dan, Dempsey, and Siobhan do.”
“Kim!” The snap in Siobhan’s voice drew Kim from her postulations.
Kim blinked and focused on Siobhan. “What?”
“That’s my question.” Siobhan planted her hands on her hips and stared Kim down. “Do what?”
“Have tattoos,” Kim answered in a distracted voice, shifting her gaze between her friends.
“I don’t have a tattoo.” Siobhan’s look was equal parts confusion and trepidation.
“I don’t either,” Dempsey rumbled.
“But you do.” Kim strode across the room, ducked into the bathroom, and grabbed a mirror. She started to stride back into the bedroom then thought better of it. Instead, she poked her head out to look at her friends. “Come in here.”
“We aren’t all going to fit,” Dempsey said.
Kim looked over her shoulder, assessing the space. “You’re probably right.”
Before she could suggest logistics Dan made the choice for her, pushing forward to enter the bathroom. Kim stabbed the mirror at him, “Look.”
Dan angled the hand mirror so he could see his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He grunted, stepped back, and pivoted to hand the mirror to Dempsey who’d moved to stand in the doorway. When Dempsey wrapped his fingers around the mirror Dan stepped around him and approached Siobhan.
He indicated her neck with the point of a blunt finger. “Can I?”
Siobhan’s expression was still confused and wary but she tilted her head to allow him access. While Dempsey stepped up to the sink mirror to check out his neck with the hand mirror, Dan moved over to Patti and again asked permission before peering at her neck. Making a hmm noise he leaned in so he could really look at it.
Apparently satisfied he rocked back on his heels and pushed into the bathroom. Kim stepped back until her shoulders were flush against the large, glazed window at the far end of the space, leaving Dan room to step up to the dual sink beside Dempsey. He leaned in and pulled his earlobe forward, angling his head so he could see behind his ear.
Dempsey, next to him, angled the hand mirror more, peering intently at the back of his ear in the sink mirror. “That’s not right.”
He stepped back and looked at Kim. “Who has them?”
“I just discovered it about a mero ago. I know Patti and I don’t and you, Dan, and Siobhan do.”
The niggling niggle at the back of her brain was there again. She closed her eyes, the better to focus her mind. Niggle. Niggle. Oh. She pressed her finger to the back of her ear as the memory of a sensation from the other day came into something like focus.
“Patti?” She pitched her voice to carry, momentarily considering keeping her tone low as they had since placing Ben in this room dias prior, but decided if Ben woke up because they were hollering around him then by damned that seemed like a great thing. Didn’t know why she hadn’t tried it before.
Oh, wait, she had. Day one. About halfway through the night. When they couldn’t wake his ass up and they only had Sunny’s insistence he was fine and weird words about rebooting his brain. She hadn’t understood the reference then and she still didn’t understand it now. What would kicking him in the head with a boot do besides more damage?
And way off point. Freaking squirrel brain.
Patti must have had a similar thought because she hollered back. “Yeah?”
“Come here so I don’t have to yell?”
“Will I fit?”
Kim eyed the room and shrugged. “We might have to be a bit friendly.”
“You hate friendly.”
“I do, but I need to ask you something. Get your ass in here.”
Patti strode in with raised brows. “Ass reporting for duty.”
A thought occurred to Kim. She pushed her bangs up higher and hollered again. “Rapunzel?”
“What?”
Rapunzel’s head poked in through the doorway. She took a look at the space full of four grown people that probably should only hold three and it looked like she decided hovering in the doorway made more sense than introducing her body to the mix.
“When did you see Patti’s tattoo?” she made air quotes.
Rapunzel thought for a mikro then said, “Yesterday morning?”
Kim humphed and looked at Patti. “When did you visit Ben?”
Patti eyed her. “Every day.”
“But when yesterday? In the morning? Afternoon.”
“Afternoon,” Patti dragged out.
“Uh huh. After morning.”
“That’s usually when afternoon happens.”
Dempsey made a growling noise then turned around, planted his ass against the sink, and crossed his arms. “Enough.” He glowered at Kim. “Where’s this going?”
Kim acknowledged his frustration as valid. She kept her attention on Patti but lifted her chin in Dempsey’s direction. “When you went in to see Ben did you feel anything near your ear? Maybe a pulling sensation?”
Patti frowned. “I thought I got stung by a bug.”
Kim swept her gaze over Dan and Dempsey then shifted to tiptoe and looked around Rapunzel to Siobhan who stood behind the blonde’s shoulder. “Any of you feel anything near your ear?”
“At any point?” Siobhan asked.
“No. Narrow it down to,” Kim looked to Rapunzel who repeated, “Morning.”
Nodding Kim echoed the word. “Morning.”
A chorus of “no’s”.
“What’s the difference?” Siobhan asked.
Kim turned to look at Dan and raised her brows. He gave a subtle shrug and shifted his toothpick, then unbuttoned his vest pocket, retrieved his book, and started making notes with a pencil. Kim followed the motion for a mikro then asked, “Thoughts?”
“Not yet.” Dan didn’t look up from his scratching.
Faced with this complete shut down, Kim turned to the others who looked as confused as she felt.
“We all sat with him,” Siobhan said.
“I know.”
“We all sat with him yesterday.”
“I know,” Kim pressed the word hard between metaphorical hands like there was juice in it that would come out.
Siobhan’s mouth firmed into a hard line. She turned and looked at Ben then back to the bathroom. “Why didn’t we notice?”
“Notice the fingerprints?”
“Yes.”
“We had other things on our minds?”
“We always have other things on our minds.”
“Weird placement? It’s not like we go around looking at the back of each other’s heads.”
Patti shrugged. “She’s got a point.”
“Excuse me.” Dempsey pushed past Kim and strode into the bedroom, taking up a spot near the foot of Ben’s bed and staring down at their prone friend.
“We need the others back.”
Kim turned at Dan’s words. He looked up from his book and tapped his pencil on the opened page. “We only have you and Patti without a mark at this point. Until we know who has one and who doesn’t we can’t figure this out.”
Kim shifted to look at Rapunzel. “Can you send for a messenger to go to the hospital, the Town Hall, Abe’s studio, and Gwen’s church? I think she’s getting ready for the Rescued’s meeting there. We need everyone back here.”
“Let’s not wait for a messenger.” Kim turned at Siobhan’s words. Siobhan rubbed at the back of her ear, over the black spot. “I’ll go to the church and get Gwen. Dempsey, can you get Ivan?”
“On it.” Dempsey nodded and shifted his messenger bag on his shoulder then started for the door.
“I’ll get Abe,” Dan slipped his book and pencil into his vest pocket then buttoned the flap closed, “and we can stop at the hospital. Abe’s studio is close to it.”
“Okay,” Siobhan counted on her fingers. “That’s Ivan, Gwen, Abe, and Prairie.” She turned to look at Kim. “We’ll be back as quick as we can.”
Patti looked at Kim, then moved to sit in the chair next to Ben. Eye on the fire dog nestled in the sheets, she reached forward and took Ben’s lax hand in hers. Sass scurried up her chest, across her shoulder, and then down her arm before running the length of Ben’s arm and taking up a position in the crook of his neck. Patti followed the movement with an indulgent smile, then leaned forward and began to softly sing something about pineapples. A mikro later Sass picked up the tune, gently crooning it into Ben’s ear.
With nothing better to do Kim sidled to sit at the end of the bed, propping her back against the high brass footboard.
Rapunzel shifted on her feet, drawing Kim’s gaze. “I’ll just,” she jerked a thumb towards the door, “I don’t know. Tell the others about this. They’ll want to know.”
Kim nodded. “Sounds good.”
With that she closed her eyes, letting the sound of Patti and Sass’ song wash over her as she settled in to wait for the others to arrive. Questions tried to push their way to the forefront of her mind but rather than entertain a whole bunch of ‘what ifs’ that couldn’t do more than run in circles in her brain until they had more information, she forced herself to focus on the rhythm of Patti and Sass’ voices, slowing her breathing to match the flow.
Enter The Woods 