12:13
“My name is Terra. My mo—mother is Beatrice. Was Beatrice.”
Nestled in Ivan’s arms, safe for the moment, Prairie barely registered it when Kim exited the dining room. She’d like to claim it was because she was focused on the explanation Terra was giving to her friends. But really she was just feeling very. Very low energy. Very unsure. And very scared.
Kim slid out of the dining room, expression blank and skin stark, and took up a place next to Ivan who’d steadfastly held Prairie against his heart since extracting her from the scene of her crime. Javier’s crime.
It was hard to separate still. Eventually she’d compartmentalize. Relegate Javier and his life experiences into one of the infinite boxes in her mind where she stored the lives of the dead, forever the archivist of souls.
The image of those boxes drew to mind the card catalog in the library in which she’d first met Kirby. And doing so seemed to call forth the dog that was not a dog. There was a slight tug in her side and then Kirby stood beside Ivan, all three of its heads turned to look up at Prairie and all six eyes focused on her drawn features.
“You did well, My One.” Pitched low enough it didn’t interfere with Terra’s retelling of what had occurred with her mother, One’s voice resonated with a confidence Prairie was finding it hard to feel. It felt good for One to show their approval but without her buy-in the impact was lessened.
That was the thing with praise. You had to believe you deserved it or it splashed up against the breakwater of your self-worth.
When she’d permitted the Spirit of the freshly murdered Bandit, Javier, to enter her she’d thought to be doing the right thing. The righteous thing. To say that the sheer volume of spirits of slaughtered people had hit her hard when entering the bandit castle would barely be talking about the tip of an iceberg.
Yes, the tip of the iceberg was what captured her attention. But it was the underlying mysteries that lurked below the surface of the castle, the butchered spirits almost nothing to that well of hunger that was growing exponentially as it fed on the evil enacted by the castle denizens, that demanded she do something. Something only she could do. Because that evil would have lead she and the others astray. Told them there was nothing to see there. Lead them in circles while the Bandit Queen and her men feasted and in feasting fed the evil.
It was a horrible circle. It was also not masked from her that it was a metaphor. That evil? It was Magick. So, she wasn’t right to call it evil. It simply was. An energy that needed more to perpetuate. In essence it was hungry for life. Yes, in the simplest sense for life to consume. But really it was hungry for life. Its own. It was hungry to continue to exist.
She’d encountered all varieties of life and death in her time, but what she felt when she walked into this castle? Nothing came close. It had taken everything she had to well herself off from the call of it. To not consume. To, in fact, stop the consumption. And it had been a near thing.
If she hadn’t let Javier in – not just to lead her through the castle and reveal its secrets, but to override her natural reluctance to take life, understanding as she did intrinsically its preciousness — she would not have been capable of stopping Beatrice in the way Beatrice had to be stopped.
“What mother did to Javier? I knew things were happening. People were disappearing. But that’s the nature of bandits. They come and go. I didn’t realize–” Terra’s voice washed against Prairie’s ears. She tried to focus on the young woman but it took more energy than she had to spare.
The snippet of a song played through her mind. It felt familiar. “Run little girl.” At her whisper Ivan looked down at her. “What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Ivan searched her features for a long moment, then turned his attention back to Terra and Prairie went back to ruminating.
Javier had used so much of her Magick to make the spirits present enough to interact with The Real and enact their vengeance on their killers. Add in the Magick she used to keep her independence from him, to not let him subsume her entirely as other Spirits did when she allowed their possession, and then to expel him and it was no wonder she was tired. Bone deep tired. So, that explained the very low energy.
Also explained why she was still in Ivan’s arms when she should have been asking to be let down. Despite feeling like she should be trying to stand on her own, she rested her head against his chest and allowed herself the moment’s respite.
Right now it was all she could do to keep her eyes open and her thoughts in some kind of order. Ivan taking control for the moment let her think and that felt more important than asserting her independence. For the moment.
And, yes, she got the parallel between how Javier took control and the way Ivan did. Yes, completely different mechanisms, but both threatened her independence. She’d ask to be let down once she got over the exhaustion, both physical and mental that came from the amount of energy she’d expended.
That covered the low energy.
Being unsure was—well, she knew intellectually that Beatrice had to be stopped and in doing so stopping the hunger from consuming until it was bloated, but her heart? That was where her doubts grew, like seeds in fertile ground. That was what she realized as she rode along with Javier, leafing through his memories as Dan would leaf through the pages of a book.
He’d been close. Too close, clearly, leading to him being splayed open on the table with Beatrice’s arm in his guts and his guts in her gut. But that closeness let him see a part of the mystery. It had made him quite, quite insane. Almost as insane as Beatrice who became a tool by which the energy extracted more from the world than was healthy for it and also for the world.
That right there was something Javier discovered and that was what had him dead on that table. Because it made him mad but not so mad that he wasn’t lucid enough to potentially stop the slaughter. The feeding of the machine.
Yes, she now got the significance of that song the mice sang. To an extent. She didn’t get it all. But she thought that was for the best because if she did get it all then she would be quite as bonkers, cuckoo, nuts as poor dead Javier. And less poor but equally as dead Beatrice.
The scared? Well, she wasn’t going to inventory or rationalize that feeling. It was covered in her ruminating on her low energy and feeling unsure. Being scared? She considered that part of the safeguard her psyche created to keep her from tipping over to the dark. Scared was good. Motivating.
But enough of that. She’d lingered long enough in Ivan’s arms. Time to take back a little control.
She took an inventory of her body. Wiggled her toes in her crocs. Felt along the edges of her Magick with her mind. It was still depleted, but it felt like it was filling back up, maybe because of Siobhan’s potions. That woman brewed some great potions.
Deciding she was well enough to get down from Ivan’s arms, she took a deep breath then summoned the energy to lift her hand and tap Ivan’s chest.
“You can put me down, Ivan.”
Ivan focused on Terra as she said, “She wasn’t always like that.”
The line of his jaw firmed, which may have indicated something or it may not have. Prairie was unsure. What she was sure about was he made no move to let her down. Maybe he was as in his head as she was in hers?
Allowing that was possible, she repeated, “Ivan? Put me down.”
If possible, his jaw got firmer. “No.”
Prairie thought his jawline firm? It was nothing to the tone of his voice and that single terse word.
So, he’d heard her. He was just ignoring her. Prairie tapped his chest again. When he didn’t look down at her but kept focused on Terra, she tapped again. Harder. And also squirmed a little in his hold.
“Something seemed to take her over some point past. It was slow. I didn’t notice,” Terra said.
“Ivan,” Prairie added a little more heat to his name. This time he looked down at her.
“Yes?”
“Please let me down.”
“No.” His arms tightened around her.
Prairie considered her options then channeled a little of her inner Gwen. She reached down, grabbed Ivan’s nipple through his very nice shirt, and gave him a titty twister that had him yelping and looking at her with a pained expression reeking of betrayal.
“Ouch!”
Prairie blinked up at him and then gave a gentle smile. “Don’t make me hurt you again.”
“Didn’t hurt.”
“Oh?” She pinched harder and then gave another twist.
He grimaced but didn’t loosen his hold on her. “You don’t scare me.”
Prairie got he meant in the immediate sense of her hurting him but his words touched on the doubts still roiling in her. A vision of the room and the nearly decapitated Bandit Queen, from the perspective she’d had while crouched on the arms of the woman’s chair, flooded her mind, blanking out Ivan’s features.
The sounds. The squelching sounds as her daggers stabbed and stabbed and blood sprayed drowned out Terra’s voice. Drowned out reason for a moment. And the smell. Of decaying corpse and blood, both the rot of the older blood pooling around Javier’s body on the table and the fountain of fresh released from Beatrice. That smell. She could taste the funk of it.
Swallowing her nausea and revulsion, she forced the memory down, down, down into the archive box holding Javier and then raised burning eyes to Ivan.
“You saw what I did in there.” It came out a whisper.
“I did.”
“So, aren’t you afraid?” Because, again, she was. The question came from the dark hungry place inside her. Again that snippet of song played in her head.
Before she could dip back into that dark well, Ivan shook his head. “Of you? No.” His tone brooked no argument. “For you?”
“Why?”
She knew why. But she wanted Ivan to say it. Needed it.
Distantly Prairie was aware of Siobhan thanking Terra and leading her from the room. But her focus was on Ivan and what he’d said. She trusted Siobhan would make sure the young woman was safe while also extracting any information they could from her.
This, right here, felt more important.
She was so used to putting other’s needs above her own – to the point of giving up her agency as she had to Javier when it called for it though thankfully it rarely did. It felt a little weird to make herself the center of focus. Maybe it was the way Ivan held her, so close she felt the beat of his heart against her cheek. Maybe it was the way he focused on her, like the rest of the world fell away. It gave her permission to be that center, for once. Maybe.
No longer clustered around Terra, the group drifted over to Ivan and Prairie. Prairie looked away from Ivan when Gwen asked, “What happened in there?”
Prairie forced a soft smile. “Do you want the detailed explanation or just the bullets.”
Gwen seemed to consider this a moment. “Bullets?”
“This place is full of Spirits.” Prairie stuttered to a stop. Was it? She cast her Magick out, frowning when she encountered no Spirits. Not even the fragments of ones. She turned her head to look at the door to the dining room and probed a bit deeper. Still nothing.
“Was.” She corrected. “Was full of Spirits. When we entered a particularly strong one approached me. His name was Javier. He told me if I agreed to help him he would help us. He implied if he didn’t help us we’d be lead in circles and never do what we needed to.”
“Okay?”
Prairie gave Gwen another smile, a weak one that barely lifted the corners of her mouth. “So I agreed. And I let him possess me.”
Ivan stiffened. “You let him?”
“Yes.”
“Have you done that before?”
“Yes.” When a muscle ticked in his jaw, she hurried to add, “Not often.”
Gwen gasped and pressed a hand to her chest, like she could feel the toll the possession had taken on Prairie. And she probably could. “Prairie! That feels–” Gwen tapered off, appearing to struggle for the right words, “dangerous.”
Prairie bit her lip as she struggled to form an explanation that would appease the concern she saw in Gwen’s eyes and felt in the tension of Ivan’s arms. “It isn’t entirely conscious. Sometimes the Magick takes over. But, really, it’s rare!”
“Prairie!” There was a snap in Ivan’s voice that reverberated through his frame, carrying into hers. She squirmed against him.
“Let me down, Ivan.”
“I can’t.”
“Ivan,” Siobhan stepped up and stared him down. “She wants to be let down. Let her down.”
“I–” he paused, then grit his teeth. “Can’t.”
“Now!” There was the schoolteacher who was used to corralling unruly little ones.
Ivan’s arms loosened and he slowly lowered Prairie to her feet. She lowered her head, took a deep breath through her nostrils, then took several steps back until she no longer felt the heat of his body though the heat of his stare? That was harder to avoid.
His stare threatened to see right into her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Even though his hold had felt good in the aftermath of Javier’s possession, she had too many secrets, almost none her own. She could not let him in, despite how much his expression begged it.
“How often?” His rigid posture reflected in his tone. “How often do you put yourself at that risk?”
“Only when it’s very bad.” Prairie firmed her jaw, reflecting his expression back at him. “And I’m not going to apologize. Nor am I going to stop helping people who need it. Even if I’m the only one who can see them. More so because I’m the only one that can see them! Because I’m the only one that can help!”
Ivan threw his hands up. Turned. Walked towards the wall and stood there, staring at the stone, shoulders tight. Prairie fought down her apology. She hadn’t really meant to say all that, but it was true and the anger she felt at what his question implied about her choices felt right. It felt good to defend her choices. They might have put her in danger, but they were necessary!
There it was. The exhaustion, uncertainty, and fear were burned away by the anger flaring to life inside her.
Was it fair to ivan to use his concern to fuel that fire? Maybe not. But she needed that fire. And she was tired of apologizing. Minimizing. Being Nice Prairie. Good Prairie. Kind Prairie.
Contained. Small.
No!
Why was it okay he strode in all heroic with his flashy shield and his mechanical weaponry, right at the front where the threat was the worst, but it was wrong when she exercised her own form of heroism?
For a moment she questioned if the wave of rage she felt was a residual of that Javier had flooded her with. But when she took a mikro to consider that she decided it didn’t really matter. She was right to be angry. She got to be a hero too. Darn it!
Maybe she needed a little more anger in her life!
Okay, in her heart she knew this might be a little over, but it just felt good to feel angry. It burned away the lingering memories of that room and the flesh and the blood and the frenzied spirits tearing the bandits apart, ostensibly at the direction of her Magick. It drowned out the ear worm of that darned song.
Was it reckless to do what she’d done? Maybe? Oh, who was she kidding? Did it mean she wouldn’t do it again? No. No, it did not. She’d do it again and she wouldn’t claim the Magick compelled her. It was just the right thing to do. If she could help she would. And if Ivan didn’t like it he could choke on a pickle. A big, dill pickle!
She stood there, fists at her side, arms shaking and she stared at Ivan like an enemy. She took a step towards him. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she reached him but something drove her and she was not going to blame the lingering influence of Javier, though it very well may have been that compelling her movements.
Before she had made it a second step, Siobhan slid in front of her. She held her hands up in the classic “no weapons/no threat” gesture. “We wouldn’t ask you to. Apologize. Or stop helping.”
Gwen slipped up beside Siobhan. She nodded vigorously and pressed a hand to her chest. “I understand. Sometimes you just have to react when you see something wrong. Consequences come later.”
Prairie bit her lips. Nodded. “Yes.”
“But?” Gwen twisted up her face into something like a shrug. “Warn us, maybe? We can’t have your back if we don’t know you need us to.”
Prairie was so used to doing this alone. Just she and the Spirits. That had been her life for so long. Having friends, especially ones that she could lean on, was new. She really hadn’t considered to ask for help. That was—short-sighted. “Oh.” She stared sightlessly at the tip of her shoe and repeated, “Oh.”
Gwen lay a tentative hand on her upper arm. “We’re here for you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Prairie jerked the other woman a look. Had she read her mind?
“Oh.” She pressed a hand to her cheek. Felt it slide. Pulled it back and stared at the blood on it. Then lifted it again and brushed it against her cheek before drawing back with more blood.
“Here,” Siobhan leaned in with a wet cloth she’d pulled from who knew where. “Let me.”
As the other woman drew the cloth over Prairie’s cheeks, then her nose, her forehead, and travelled down to her throat, Prairie realized if she was covered in blood – which, considering, made a lot of sense – then she must have got it all over Ivan.
She turned her gaze to where he stood, still staring at the wall with his shoulders so high they had to be brushing his earlobes. With him facing away from her she couldn’t see his shirt but she suspected it was as bloody as the cloth Siobhan pulled back from her face.
Ben walked over to stand next to him and said something too low for Prairie to hear. Ivan flicked his hand to the side, dismissing Ben’s concern then turned on his heel to level Prairie with a hard stare. She found herself flinching under it. Again she felt compelled to apologize. And again she shoved the impulse down.
Instead, she said in a voice meant to carry to him, though ostensibly she spoke to Siobhan and Gwen. “I have a father. I don’t need Ivan to be mine.”
Patti sidled over and took up a position in front of Prairie, blocking Ivan partially from her view. “Not sure about father,” Patti’s mouth quirked on an impish grin, “but that ws some big Daddy energy.”
A blush erupted from Prairie’s chest and flowed up to her cheeks, surging with the pulse of her rapidly beating heart. “I don’t need him to be that either!”
“I don’t know.” Prairie lifted her brows. Waggled them. “Could be fun. All that intensity focused on you?” She gave a big, fake shiver.
Prairie slanted another look at Ivan. Bit her lip. Her accursed blush burned hotter. She was pretty sure it was going to cleanse the blood from her skin. That’s how hot it felt.
Dempsey walked over, a question in his eyes. Gwen waved him off, “Go. This is girl talk.”
He gave Gwen a long assessing look then shrugged and wandered towards where Ivan and Ben, and now Dan, stood near the wall.
Abe bounced over. They showed absolutely no sign they saw the blood spattering Prairie’s top, separate from a very small widening of their eyes before they looked into Prairie’s face with a sunny smile. “Can I join?”
“You don’t want to hang with the boys?” Gwen asked.
Abe grinned and shoved their curls back from their twinkling eyes with their dark hand. “Feels like this would be more fun.”
“Then, sure,” Gwen didn’t hesitate. For a moment Prairie considered if Gwen had shooed off Dempsey because he was Dempsey and not a dreaded ‘boy’. But it was only for a moment as Patti drew her attention with a laugh.
“Your mouth says no but your eyes say yes. Yes, yes, yes.”
Gwen smacked the back of her hand against Patti’s arm. “Hush. Her eyes aren’t saying that.”
Gwen curled her lips over her teeth to hide her mirth. It still reflected in her eyes.
A giggle erupted from Prairie, startling her. A few meros ago she would have sworn she’d never laugh again. Too many heavy thoughts. Leave it to this group to drag her out of her malaise.
But something was off. It took her a moment to realize what it was. While all the rest of the ladies – and Abe – had rallied around her, Kim was missing from the group. Prairie shot a quick look over at where the guy-types had clustered around Ivan, offering sympathy at her slight or maybe just talking about food and farts and the other things guys talked about when they were trying to be very “guy”.
The generalization made her smile even as she scolded herself for being judgy.
Noting Kim wasn’t in the ‘guy cluster’, Prairie shifted her attention around the room until she found Kim propped against the wall opposite the ones the guys stood around. The other woman held a small fire elemental, Prairie was pretty sure it was that one that took the shape of a chihuahua, against her chest. Her eyes were closed and her hair flopped over her face. Prairie took a mikro to note that the other woman seemed to be completely free of blood. Even Siobhan had a few sprays across her sweater and the bottom of her skirt was dark with it. But Kim was entirely free of blood.
Hmmm. Prairie considered that for a moment, then separated from the group of women clustering around her with a whispered apology and slowly approached Kim. She made sure to twist her feet so her crocs squeaked, announcing her advance. For once that squeak served her well, rather than being a pain.
“Kim?”
Kim looked up. For a moment it was clear she was not seeing Prairie. Then she drew a breath that lifted her chest and forced something like a smile. “Prairie.”
Prairie lifted her hand with its crust of blood around the cuticles. “You’re clean.”
Kim looked down at herself, like Prairie was pointing out something she hadn’t realized.
“I am?” There was a note of confusion in her response, whether spurred by Prairie’s question or the state of her person.
“Could you?” Prairie waved her hand, drawing Kim’s attention to its state.
Kim eyed the hand and the blood for a moment and then frowned. “I’m not sure I can clean you the way I was cleansed. But maybe?” Her frown deepened and then a look of focus took over her features. “There is water in the pipes in this place. I could call it but I don’t know what kind of structural damage it would do if the pipes came with it. I could show you where the sinks are?”
“That would work.” Prairie gave Kim a tentative smile then looked back over her shoulder to call out. “Siobhan?”
At Siobhan’s look of interest, Prairie said, “Kim knows where there are sinks.”
“Oh.” Siobhan shook her head slightly to settle her flower crown, then raised a hand to the petals. “I could use a wash.”
She walked over to join Prairie then looked at Kim expectantly. “Sinks?”
Kim blinked the last of the haze from her eyes and focused on Siobhan. “Sinks. This way.”
Without any pause for confusion, Kim turned and strode down the long hall jutting off the open area leading up to the dining room door. Prairie hurried to catch up to her with Siobhan right beside her. She heard a sound from behind suggesting the others were following and didn’t give much thought to anyone straggling.
As she walked the song Javier had sung while approaching Beatrice rose up from her memory again. She found herself humming it and before she could stop Patti came up next to her and picked up a few notes. Then she cocked her head. “Little Girl Gone?”
“Run little girl,” Prairie whispered. She closed her eyes for a moment, bracing her hand against the wall before looking up at Patti and shaking her head. “I’d like it to stop. It won’t stop.”
Kim stopped walking forward and turned to look at them. Siobhan did the same. And behind them everyone else halted too. Ivan, towering over everyone but Dempsey, leveled her with a questioning look which she averted her gaze from rather than respond.
“Oh,” Patti shifted and she studied Prairie’s face, like she could see inside of her to where the song lived. Maybe she could. Who knew? “I can help with that.” Patti frowned. “I think. Can I?”
She motioned to Prairie’s head. Prairie lowered it towards her, giving permission for Patti to lay her palm against Prairie’s cheek. Patti peered into Prairie’s eyes, her gaze losing focus. “Where are you, you little bugger? Ah ha!”
With that triumphant cry Patti pulled her hand away from Prairie’s cheek. As she did so Prairie felt the melody slip free of her mind. It left with a single tinkling cord, like it was reluctant to leave but couldn’t fight the grip of Patti’s Magick.
“There you go.” Patti flicked her hand over her shoulder, like she was throwing spilled salt. “Better?”
Prairie took a moment to search her mind for any hint of the song. No. Nothing. A smile came unbidden to her mouth. “Thank you. It wasn’t letting go.”
“Yeah. It was a stubborn one.” Patti lifted her hand and smoothed some of Prairie’s hair back from her face with an indulgent smile. “You have something in your hair.”
“I do.” Prairie turned and looked at Kim. “Sink?”
Kim nodded. “This way.”
With that she took off down the hall again. She didn’t hesitate when she came to a T-intersection of halls, just turned confidently to the right and kept going. After maybe a mero of similar intersections and turns she pushed open a door to reveal a bathroom that must have been for communal use as there were four large metal sinks, multiple spigots on each, lining one of the walls.
“Water,” Kim said, gesturing towards the sink. As if called, and it probably was, water began pouring from the spigots. With a relieved smile Prairie walked into the room and put her hands under the flow. Cupping water into her hands to splash her face, she studiously avoided her reflection in the large mirror that ran the length of the wall behind the sinks.
It was one thing to suspect she looked like Bloody Mary. It was quite another to get the visual to confirm it.
Siobhan walked over to stand next to her, catching water in her hand from one of the other two spigots in the large sink.
Prairie felt Ivan’s gaze lingering on her as he entered the room and walked to the farthest sink. She kept her gaze down and kept splashing water until it stopped running pink. From the very corner of her averted eye, she caught motion as Ivan unbuttoned his shirt with competent fingers and shrugged it from his broad shoulders.
Rather than stare like a complete creeper as he removed the shirt and dropped it into the sink, Prairie focused on her hands and the water flowing into them.
“Damn,” Patti drew out the word. It really didn’t take a genius to realize the other woman did not experience Prairie’s reticence in ogling Ivan in his wife beater.
Siobhan snorted next to Prairie and then splashed water on her face before lifting the hem of her skirt and plopping it into the water pooling in the bottom of the sink.
“You don’t get muscles like that lifting pencils and pushing paper.”
Kim heaved a sigh at Patti’s antics and moved over to stare into the mirror over the sink next to the one Prairie and Siobhan were washing up in. It was clear by the way her eyes lost focus that she was not seeing her reflected features. Prairie could speculate what the other woman was seeing but doing so danced dangerously close to sparking her own memories and she’d just shaken those things clear.
She retrieved her daggers from the sheaths at her side and slid them into the sink to scrub at the blood. “They fade,” she murmured.
Kim looked over at her, expression clouded. “What?”
“The memories.” Prairie lowered her chin and stared at her daggers. “They fade.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Not this. But I’ve experienced things that I’d rather not remember. Too many.”
Ivan tilted his head, pretty clearly eavesdropping, but at least he didn’t interject himself into the conversation.
Prairie took a fortifying breath and met Kim’s gaze in the mirror. “I’m often the final witness for the dead. I see things that nobody else sees. And I don’t always want to. But I do it because it honors the dead.”
“I don’t know that those dead felt honored.”
“The Spirits of the ones that they killed did. The ones who did the killing? I don’t feel that bad about their passing.”
“That feels–” Kim paused as if searching for the word. “Cold?”
Prairie didn’t take offense. She had the sense Kim was expressing how she felt. Probably a sense of detachment. That’s the way Prairie felt when she did the right thing even though some would consider it wrong. But maybe she was projecting?
“It feels how it feels to you. If you read it as cold, okay? I like to think of it as just.” Prairie looked back down at the water pouring over her hands. “They were eating people, Kim. Their lives were forfeit. You saved me from bearing all the burden of the justice the dead deserved.” Looking up she poured her feelings into the gaze she leveled on the side of Kim’s face. “Thank you. It’s nice to not be the only one.”
Gwen hug tackled her from behind. Luckily she saw the approach in the mirror a moment before the impact or Prairie wasn’t sure how she’d have responded. As it was she softened to take the affection as it was surely intended.
“You are not alone!” Gwen all but yelled. Then Patti stomped up and engulfed Prairie and Gwen in her arms.
“We are so here for you. And the hugs. All the hugs.” She turned her head to look at Kim in the mirror’s reflection. “Hugs?”
“Pass.” Kim’s reply was dry but she softened it with a small smile. “Sentiment appreciated.”
Siobhan finished rinsing her skirt. She wringed the water from the hem and let it drop back to the top of her boots. After settling it she looked into the mirror and the reflected gazes there.
“Terra said she realized her mother intended to eat Gia so she let Gia go. It’s why she ended up in the cage.”
“Any idea where they were headed?” Dempsey asked.
“Terra said a bird told Gia Kai was at the castle of the Snow Queen up North.”
Ben pursed his lips. “Another bird.”
“There seems to be a lot of birds in this story. It’s probably significant.” Siobhan slid her gaze over to focus on Dan. “Any idea?”
“Historically birds mean many things in stories but in fairy tales they are messengers and are said to bridge the human world and that of spirit or Magick.”
Siobhan looked back at Ben. “Answer your question.”
“I guess.”
“Anyhow,” Siobhan continued. “The Snow Queen’s castle seems to be our next destination.”
“Anything beyond North?” Dempsey asked.
Siobhan shook her head ‘no’.
“Yeah,” Dempsey sighed. “That would be too easy.”
“It would.”
“Seems like the first step is leaving the castle. Anyone know how to do that?”
Dempsey shifted his attention around the group. Kim lifted a finger. “I’ll ask Air to scout an exit.”
“A safe one,” Patti added.
“A safe exit.”
It took almost no focus and even less Magick to ask Air to help. It was Kim’s experience Air liked to help. At least it liked to help her. No coaxing needed.
The time it took an Air Lady to return, Ivan was able to shrug back into his slightly damp but clean button-up. Ben pulled a cookie out of his jacket and ate it slowly. Seeing this Prairie gave a weak smile and retrieved a nectarine from her pocket to eat. She ate it much faster than Ben and the way she patted her pockets suggested she was still hungry. Kim dug a pack of red licorice from one of her cargo pockets and was handing it to Prairie when the Lady returned.
An image of a wooden door formed in her mind. Then a fairly detailed schematic marking the path Air took to get to it provided details to get there.
She lifted a hand and cupped the cheek of the Lady. Looking into its cloudy white gaze she sent it thanks. Then she dropped her hand and turned to the group.
“I’ve got our exit.”
“Great.” Siobhan settled the strap of her bag over her chest and walked to the bathroom door. Dan and Dempsey fell in behind her with Abe trailing them. The rest headed for the door. As Ivan walked passed Kim she halted him.
At his confused look she traced her fingers on the air. A brisk breeze flowed over Ivan, removing the water from his shirt and leaving it as crisp as it would have been coming off a clothesline. He looked down at the shirt then back at Kim.
“Thanks.”
“Thanks for taking Prairie out of there.”
“I wasn’t leaving her.”
“I know. Still, thanks.”
“Did you clean up the mess.”
“It’s clean.” She forced a smile. “I wasn’t leaving that. Even if none of this is real and it disappeared after we left, I wasn’t leaving that.”
Ivan nodded then headed out of the bathroom on Ben’s heels.
“Hey!” Kim called out after the retreating backs. “Do any of you know where you are going?”
“Uh, no?” Gwen responded on a yell. “So why don’t you get your tooshie up here and tell us where to go!”
Kim spared a small glance at the water still pouring out of the spigots.
With a thank you she asked Water to stop the flow. Once that was done, she hurried her steps to join her friends.
Enter The Woods 