13:10
“They’re at the harp room. My threads are blocking the way, but I suspect they’ll get through eventually.”
Geppetto’s voice rumbled through Dempsey’s mind. Warped. Competed with the erratic thrum of his pulse.
The darkness in his mind pulsed in time with his heart, expanding and contracting. He fought to focus through it but it was damned insistent. He considered lifting his eyelids but then reconsidered. It wasn’t so much he couldn’t, though it was very possible that was the case considering how heavy they felt. It was more he didn’t want to open them and let the two holding him know he was conscious again. Not that he was dead sure he was.
Dead sure. He almost snorted but held it back as that more than his opening his eyes would let the two know he was at least semi-aware which would probably open himself up to whatever they would decide to do to get him to comply with them.
With Mary. He wasn’t absolutely sure Geppetto and she had the same agenda. Though based on the threads he very much still felt jabbing into him Geppetto was at least partially on board with her.
“Stop them!”
“I said my threads are blocking the way.”
“Not you! ARFA!” Mary’s voice pierced directly into Dempsey’s brain, cutting through the throb and pulse and taking up a home somewhere near his brain stem. He involuntarily tensed as it took up residence there then regretted it when she said, “Wait? Did he move? Is he awake?”
Dempsey did his absolute damnedest to keep his muscles lax in the cocoon of threads. To not flinch at the dig of her voice or the jab of the threads.
Geppetto’s “I don’t think he is,” suggested his efforts worked.
“We need more time! ARFA!” Mary’s screech raked the inside of Dempsey’s brain.
“Yes?” A voice, male and female and various tones lying over each other in something that felt like a song, answered.
“We need more time. Slow them down. Use Cinderella’s power.”
“I will try.”
Dempsey wasn’t going to open his eyes to read Mary’s expression, but the stomp of her foot and an expulsion of air suggested she was feeling some kind of way about the calm response from the multi-layered voice. Good.
“Don’t try! Do!”
A short pause later and the multi-layered voice said, “I am having trouble accessing that.”
“Why?”
“Unknown.”
ARFA said this in exactly the same way Dan did. Dempsey wondered if maybe it had picked it up from him. Or perhaps Dan and picked it up from ARFA.
“Are you okay?” Geppetto’s low voice competed with Mary’s screech and fume. “You’ve been off since you went to see Aleric.”
“I’m fine.” Mary’s tone suggested the opposite.
“Why didn’t he come back with you?”
“He couldn’t get away.” There was a long pause and then Mary screeched, “ARFA!”
Geppetto continued like Mary’s voice didn’t hit his ear drums like a cymbal crash. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he was used to it where Dempsey was fighting real hard not to cringe and give away his partial lucidity. “We could take him out of ARFA.”
“And what? Hit him with sticks? That’s so tacky.”
“But effective.”
“Tacky. Are you going to hit him? Because I’m not.” Her saccharine sweet tone took on a sharp edge. “No. ARFA will change time.” As if she realized how harsh her voice sounded, it suddenly switched back to hyper-feminine, “I won’t accept anything less. Do you hear me, ARFA?”
“Yes, Mother.” ARFA’s voice lacked inflection. Weird considering up to that moment it was nothing but inflection with its various, interwoven tones. The limpid response was all the more flat and lifeless in comparison.
Mother?
A particularly strong brain flex seized Dempsey before he could puzzle over the word. He relaxed into the pulsation, letting the darkness take him.
#
“Whoa.” Ben’s exclamation carried down the false silence of the hall.
“Whoa?” Siobhan sent back.
“You have to see this.”
“Okay?” Siobhan looked quickly at Kim and Gwen then picked up her pace. Gwen and Kim matched her, closing the distance between them and where the rest of the group clustered near an open door at the far end of the hall.
“Whoa.” The exclamation popped out of Kim as her eyes focused on the large room revealed beyond the door. At least she thought it was a large room. It was kind of hard to tell as it was absolutely full of threads.
The threads were white and had a glow. Not so bright to be called blinding, but enough that they easily lit the room. Maybe it was the sheer preponderance of threads that made it so.
Usually they were running from the threads or fending off the threads or otherwise doing something that made them preoccupied enough that Kim had never noticed the things glowed. Or maybe the ones that they’d encountered previously didn’t? Who knew.
She shuddered and took a step back, her soul retracting from the subtle pulsation of the things. Next to her Siobhan gasped and tightened her fingers around the strap of her bag. Gwen pushed up next to Siobhan, pressing a hand to the fingers tightened on the fabric.
“It’s okay,” Gwen whispered. “You’re okay. Breathe.”
Siobhan’s nod was tight. Her gaze remained on the threads, her eyes wide enough the white showed around the irises. Then she looked down slightly and visibly drew her comportment around her before drawing a deep breath that lifted her chest against the press of Gwen’s fingers.
“I am.” She lifted her voice to carry beyond the three of them. “Report?”
Ben turned from the door to look at Siobhan. “Threads.”
“I see that.” Siobhan’s steady tone showed no signs of her stress from a moment before. “Are they moving?”
“Not that I can see.”
Well, that was weird. Those things were usually attacking them, not just standing there. Stretching there? Something there. Maybe it was part of the whole ‘this isn’t quite right’ thing going on in the rest of the area? Maybe they weren’t actually threads, but the memory of threads? The echo of threads?
Before she could consider the ramifications more, Siobhan continued, “Can we move through them?”
Ben shrugged and spread his fingers at his sides. “Unknown.”
“This is your thing.”
“Threads?”
“Traps. Right? This looks like a very elaborate trap.”
“Huh.” Ben turned back and looked at the room again. “It does.” He spun again. A big grin spread his lips, his teeth a bright slash in his dark skin. Delight lit his eyes from within. He cracked his knuckles and his grin grew. “This is going to be fun.”
“ARFA?” Prairie’s quiet voice drew Kim’s attention from Ben.
“Prairie?”
Prairie continued to stare hard at the threads. “Can’t you see it?”
“See what?” Patti shouldered up next to Prairie where the smaller woman stood in the doorway.
“ARFA.”
“ARFA?” Patti made a show of peering into the thread-filled room. After a moment she muttered, “What is that?”
Kim, Gwen, and Siobhan hurried over so they could look over and around Prairie and Patti. Ben stepped sidled over the threshold and then took two steps to the left before pressing his shoulders to the wall. Ivan stepped to the right, making room for Abe to step in next to Praire and Patti. The door was giant-sized so the doorway easily held the three.
“What?” Abe asked as they leaned forward and ostentatiously peered hard into the threads.
“Over there.” Patti wiggled her finger close to her face, like she didn’t want to risk poking her arm into the room. She poked her finger forward, indicating something towards the center of the room and the web of threads.
“Oh.” Abe cocked their head. “Is that–”
“ARFA,” Prairie repeated. When Abe looked around Patti to stare at Prairie, she added. “ARFA was the harp when we found Mal. It was the first time we met ARFA. It was this figure. Not male. Not female. Pierced with threads.”
“Oh,” Abe shook their head hard enough to dislodge their curls, “Was it wearing gold? And sometimes it was tall and sometimes it was short?”
Prairie nodded.
“Thin. Then not. Beautiful?”
Again Prairie nodded. Abe bit their lip. “That was the harp?”
“That was ARFA. As we first met it. I thought it was Spirit. Trapped.”
Abe peered hard into the center of the room, their gaze penetrating the web of threads. “I think it is.”
When the others looked at them, they added. “Trapped. Only,” they frowned. “How can ARFA be trapped?” Their tone was low, almost as if they asked themselves this. Which was as good as asking the others in the group as sure as fuck they didn’t have an answer to that. But it was a good question. How could ARFA be trapped?
“Aria.”
Kim turned to look at Ivan. “Aria?”
“Aria. The dancer.” When Kim continued to stare at Ivan he added, “I think she was implying she is trapped. She asked if I would free her.” He frowned. “Or at least something like that. Maybe rescue her? I can’t remember exactly but definitely she implied she needed help.”
“So, ARFA as the harp was definitely trapped. And ARFA as Aria implied she needed help.”
“Yes.”
“Do we have to free ARFA from these threads?”
Ivan shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. But can it hurt?”
“Won’t know until we try.” Ben’s words came a moment before a piercing chord rang out. In the unnatural silence of the castle it was the most unnatural sound of all. High. Clear. Ringing like the bells of a cathedral.
Fucking loud. So fucking loud. It made a direct line from Kim’s ears to her brain, growing in volume until all she could hear was its ring. She clasped her hands to her ears, trying to block it out. But there was no blocking it. It was in her head now, pulsing and clawing at her brain.
Liquid released from her nose. She forced her hand from her right ear, cringing as the volume intensified, and pressed it against her nostril. Drawing it back revealed blood on the tips of her fingers. Instinctively she pressed her knuckles against the bottom of her nose and sniffed. Instantly she was super, super sorry for the action as blood flowed up into her sinuses and then down her throat.
“Stop!”
Even knowing the action would likely prove moot, she reached out to Air, trying to adjust the vibrations rippling through the air around them. But, of course, nothing responded. Air, like Fire, was not in this unnatural space.
Before a frown could do more than make its presence known on her forehead, the pressure stopped. As suddenly as it started. And Kim was able to hear her friends’ response to it.
Patti audibly panted. Sass gave a tremulous, sorrowful peep. Siobhan pressed the heel of her hand to the bottom of her nose, wiping away the blood there. A quick look around the group showed every single one of them had blood in the space between nose and mouth.
“Don’t touch the threads.” Ben’s weak voice came from inside the room.
“You think?” Ivan pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his face, then looked down at Prairie, offering her the cloth. She looked at it for a mikro then took it and wiped the blood from her nose with a sniff.
Kim could have told her that sniff was a bad idea. Prairie squinted and shook her head. “Ouch.”
“No.” Patti peered hard at the threads. “Touch one.”
Abe snapped her a look. “What?”
“Touch one.”
Abe’s eyes widened. They peered at Patti like they were questioning her intelligence. Or sanity. “Do you like bleeding?”
Patti didn’t shift her attention from the threads. “Please?” she said in a distracted voice.
That ‘Please’ was pretty far from her standard. It seemed to set Abe back at bit. Their gaze still on the side of Patti’s face, they took two steps into the space, all the room the threads allowed, and reached forward very slowly with a single finger. Visibly cringing, shoulders curved forward in anticipation of pain, they tapped one of the threads.
Kim hunched in as a tone rang from the thread. Then Patti sang a bass note. The vibration of her voice seemed to hit the vibration of the note from the thread and instantly the thread’s tone stopped.
Patti turned her head and smiled at the group clustered behind her and to her side. “Thought so.” She turned her attention back to the thread-filled room and nodded. In a distracted voice, she added, “Not saying hit all the threads but, if you have to, I’ve got this.”
Sass gave a sharp peep. Patti looked down at the mouse and nodded. “Sass and I have got this.”
Movement in the sea of strands drew Kim’s eye. She squinted at the dark shapes weaving through the white, a groan rumbling out of her chest as they resolved into mice. At least ten mice. As they drew nearer their little mouse voices carried in the unnatural silence, singing some kind of wordless harmony.
“You have got to be shitting me.”
Sass let out a warbling note. It flowed through the air and wove itself into the melody the other mice sang. Patti’s features smoothed as her gaze focused on the mice who stopped their movement through the strands and now hung or sat or struck various poses in the web.
She cocked her head then sang out a series of notes. The mice all to a one repeated the sound back while intently looking at Patti.
Sass scampered out of its belt house, hooked claws in Patti’s sweater so it could climb up to her shoulder, then patted Patti’s neck with one tiny paw. Patti looked down at it with a tender expression then gently lay a single finger on the paw.
Looking back at the group she raised her brows and smiled. “Me, Sass, and the mice have this.”
Kim heaved a sigh then said, “I guess it’s better than bleeding from various orifices.”
“That’s the spirit!” Gwen piped then turned to peer into the tangle of threads. “I think it’s better we go through one at a time. Just to be safe.”
Patti nodded agreement as Ben pushed away from the wall and sauntered towards the first of the threads. “This is going to be fun.”
“Is it?” Gwen asked. “Is it really?”
Ben gave a visual shrug. “It is for me.”
With that he walked forward, eyed the arrangement of the threads, then carefully stooped and shifted his shoulders so he could slide under one. Pausing with his shoulders canted, he tossed a look back at the group.
“One down. Only about,” he turned to peer into the threads before turning back, “two thousand to go.”
Abe bopped on their toes. “Me next!” They threw up a hand like they were in a classroom. “Me next!”
Kim slanted a look at Gwen. “Were we ever that young?”
Gwen made a face. “I’m still that young.”
“Of course you are.”
Gwen turned at Siobhan’s chuckle, transferring her stink eye from Kim to Siobhan. “Hush you.”
Siobhan made the universal sign for locking her lips, her eyes shining with humor. Then she looked over at Abe. “I think that’s a good idea. But wait for Ben to get a bit further.”
Ben must have hit a strand as a deep vibration started, only to be cancelled by a wave of sound formed by Patti, Sass, and the other mice. He looked back, grinned, then slowly wove forward, twisting like a pipe cleaner as he wended among the threads.
Kim’s brow furrowed as she followed the motion. “I don’t think I can do that.”
“Do what?” Gwen asked.
Kim lifted her chin in Ben’s direction. “Bend myself like a pretzel.”
“Me neither,” Ivan said. “If nothing else my height would make that difficult.”
“Do we have to weave through the web?” Prairie asked.
“We have to get through,” Ivan replied.
“But do we have to weave through? Couldn’t we remove the threads.”
Ivan eyed the web of threads. “Maybe?”
When he reached into his jacket, theoretically for something to cut with, Prairie pushed a little forward with one dagger raised, “Let me try.”
She laid her dagger’s edge on the thread and pushed down. Nothing happened. Well, nothing except a ringing tone which Patti and the mice quickly countered. Prairie lifted her other dagger, placing it below the thread directly beneath his other blade and then brought the blades together with the thread between them.
Another vibration; another counter by Patti and pals. Prairie withdrew the blades and stepped back to Ivan’s side. “I don’t think we can cut them. They feel a bit like wire rather than thread or anything easy to slice. Ivan, do you have a mechanism that could cut something like that?”
Ivan shook his head in the negative. “Nothing on me. I could make something if we need it.”
“If Dempsey was here I bet he’d have something in his bag that would work,” Gwen said in a quiet voice.
Siobhan nodded her agreement then turned to look at Dan. “Can you use your Magick on them?”
“I can try.”
Ivan and Prairie stepped back from the wide doorway, making room for Dan to take their place. He stared intently into the mid-distance for several mikros then flipped through one of his books. Stopping on a page, he scanned the words on it then said, “Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements. Lucretius.”
There was a long pause as everyone waited for Dan’s Magick to do its thing. Kim craned her neck around Ivan so she could stare into the threads. Gwen did the same on her other side. And Prairie leaned forward a little so she could sweep her gaze over the room and the web.
After absolutely nothing happened, not even a tone, Dan repeated the phrase, his face taking on a slight look of confusion. Again nothing. After a few more mikros he shook his head and stepped back from the doorway.
“If I couldn’t them I’d say they weren’t there.”
Patti gave him a probing look. “Explain?”
“Everything is made of words.” He jerked his chin at the webs then around to the doorframe then looked down at the floor and did the same before looking at Abe. “Or maybe code as Abe says. But the threads have no words.”
It was a lot for the taciturn man to say and for once there was none of his usual certainty to his tone. “They glow. Like they’re made of energy. Or Magick. There’s no structure to them for me to change.”
“Abe?”
Abe looked up at Ivan. “Ivan?”
“Can you try?”
“Changing them?”
“Maybe absorbing them?” Prairie suggested. When Abe turned to look at Prairie she added, “I’m not sure how your Magick works but I get the sense that you collect the words or the ink which is how you see this code?”
Abe gave one of their curl bouncing nods. “Yes.”
“Can you try?”
“Well, if there is no ink or words, like Dan says, and I really think Dan knows what he’s talking about, it probably won’t work, but I can try!”
Abe stepped up into the space Dan had cleared on the doorjam and flicked their hand, sending a ribbon of ink toward the threads. They frowned, then tilted their head in consideration, as the ink flowed over and around the tangle of threads. Then they flicked their wrist, broadening the ribbon of ink.
Kim watched as the dark liquid weaved around the threads then spread out to coat the surface of one for several hand spans. Then they closed their hand into a fist and a look on concentration transformed their features.
They drew a deep breath and their brows closed down to almost meet above their nose. Then they released their fist and the ink came flying back to their palm. After it was all returned they turned and shook their head slowly. They didn’t need to say anything to know it hadn’t worked.
Patti stuck her head through the open doorway and turned to look at the closest wall. Then she took a small step in so she could look at the wall on the other side of the door.
After a moment she turned back to the group. “So, we can’t cut them or Magick them and I think Kim is right about most of us not being able to Ben our way through this.”
“I like that!” Ben called from deep in the web. “I’m going to use that.”
“Cool,” Patti shot back with a very unenthusiastic voice, then continued, “Where the threads are anchored into the walls there’s a lot less of them. Couldn’t we move along the wall until we find an exit instead of going through the center?”
“You couldn’t think of that before I was a third of the way in?” Ben called back. “I’ll come back. Just let me get to the harp first?”
“Why?” Ivan shot back.
“Because it’s there?”
Yeah, Kim couldn’t utterly fault that logic. Especially as it was a very Ben thing to say.
“Actually, I was wondering if the goal here is to get to ARFA and interact with it. Maybe it—they—she–” He paused, then added, “Gender is hard.”
“Go with They,” Abe called back. “If in doubt, They. With ARFA definitely They.”
Ben gave a short nod, halting the gesture when his chin nearly brushed one of the threads. “Okay. What if they’re trapped and we need to help them? And if we do the threads go away?”
“I mean, that does seem possible,” Kim said, “ARFA does seem to test us.”
“So, I get there and ask it nicely–”
“Can you?” The corners of Ivan’s lips twitched on a suppressed smile.
Ben lifted his brows. “Interrupting.” Then he grinned. “And maybe.”
“Doesn’t seem to be in your skill set,” Gwen said.
“I feel judged.” Ben pressed a hand to his chest, careful to avoid the threads as he adopted an innocent mien.
“That’s–” Kim curled her lips over her teeth and lifted her brows high enough it strained the skin of her forehead. “Yeah.”
“Hurt,” Ben shot back. “I’m hurt.”
Ivan shook his head and once more seemed to be fighting a smile. “Keep going. You may be right. Well know soon enough.”
“So,” Ben turned to eye the threads separating him from ARFA, “if this kills me–?”
“We’ll mourn you.” Kim gave a solemn nod. “Throw a party. Lots of alcohol. Possibly dancing girls. And boys. All the dancing.”
“I’ll have to insist on all the dancing,” Ben shot back.
“You’ll be dead. But sure.”
Patti shifted to whisper in a loud enough tone it didn’t really count as one, “Do we still get dancing girls and boys if he lives.”
“Eh, sure. All the dancing.”
“Yay! Dancing!” Abe bounced on their feet and then focused on Ben who had begun winding and weaving, dodging and sliding through the threads.
Gwen shot Kim another long look which Kim met with a waggle of her brows. “Never.”
“Always,” Gwen shot back. They’d been friends long enough they didn’t need all the exposition or explanation. Gwen got that Kim was once more commenting on how young Abe was. And how old it made her feel.
“Careful.” Siobhan stepped up into the doorway so she could crane to watch Ben’s forward movement.
“Always!” Ben called back. Which was so blatantly untrue it drew a snort from Siobhan.
“Just try not to die,” she said in a long-suffering tone.
“No promises! But, if I do, all the dancing! All of it.” He hit a thread. The vibration started and was countered by Patti. After a few more twings and tings, he appeared to reach the center. If nothing else he stopped moving and then a moment later he said, “Huh.”
The last was uttered almost beneath his breath but due to the unnatural quiet it carried like he’d shouted it. Or close enough.
“Huh?” Ivan called across the space.
“ARFA isn’t here,” Ben hollered back.
“We can see it.”
“It’s here. Just not. Like the giant.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So, no sense staying here. This was a bust. I’m going to go to the side wall rather than all the way back. It’s less distance. I’ll wait for you to reach me.”
“Will you?” There was a wealth of Ben experience – Bensperience, as it were – in Ivan’s dry question.
“Maybe?”
Enter The Woods 