cosmicgrapevine

[cosmicgrapevine]

Tabby remembered screaming in rage, shoving Rita to the ground, and running outside. The wind was blowing hard now, and the approaching train moaned through the night. The tracks ran right up against the station and the ground began to rumble.

Do you hear it? Something in her head purred. Just keep running. You’re almost there. Ten more seconds, and you’ll forget everything. No more shame. No more hating the mirror. No more knowing she was right about you.

She was listening. She was ready.

Then her vision went white. She was floating. No, two strong arms had grabbed her by the midsection and pulled her onto a soft surface. Did it happen already? Was this an angel?

Then she changed direction. Slowly, gently, she descended. The wind still blew, and her cheeks stung. A face loomed over her, a face with stringy dark hair and glowing golden eyes.

“Ngah!” Tabby, her limbs numb, rolled to her left. She fell. Hit wet, cold concrete. She sat up, parted the curtain of chestnut-brown hair in front of her eyes. A feather. She’d been lying on a giant white feather the size of a mattress. It was shrinking now, floating back to Lynd’s bracelet, reattaching itself with a sharp pinging noise. She wasn’t seeing things: his eyes really did glow in the dark, like an animal’s. She didn’t know human eyes could do that.

The train roared past them, on its way north to the railyard.

“That…that was cool,” she mumbled, pointing at the feather.

“Are you alright?”

She nodded. “No. Not even close. But I’ll deal with it.” She didn’t tell him what happened. How could she? How could she tell anyone? “Why did you do that? You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t like watching people die,” he said. “And that…thing would be a very painful way to go.”

“That thi—the train?” Tabby thought back to the Kitz house, how Lynd seemed fascinated with everything from Mr. Kitz’s mobile phone to his thirteen-year-old station wagon, then looked away when she caught him staring. “Are you Amish or something?”

“What? I’m a Markstepper. Didn’t they tell you?”

“I, um, wasn’t listening. Is that like a Warden?”

He scoffed. “Wardens are parasites and ravagers. They treat the Great Vine like a gold mine, just taking and taking. Leeching the soul from it to power their little fortresses. Cervantes only brought me here to flaunt that. The whole building is Warded against my people, that room most of all; just being near it felt like a thousand knives in my skin. I had to leave.”

“I told you, it’s Kitz. Cervantes is the dead grandpa. Dead to us, anyway. Did he send you?”

“If only. I’m trying to find him, and he is not easily found. I thought if I could earn his son’s favor, that would be my ticket…only to learn the son despises him and will not help.” He looked at the distant skyline downtown, just barely visible. “So now I’m back where I started.”

“There’s no one else who can help? Not even your ‘people’?”

He shook his head. “I can’t go back home,” he said all too quickly.

“Shit, dude, I know how that feels.” Next Monday, she’d put on that stupid uniform, trudge back up the steps at St. Aggie’s, and see what Jess had done with the last shreds of her reputation. No, not Jess. You. That asshole knows he’ll get away with it, because he did it to YOU. “Shut up.” Rita’s right. You’re a slut, and this is what happens to sluts. “Shut UP!”

“Hey! Who’s there?” Came a voice from below.

The darkness was near total now, and the floodlights pointed outward, keeping them in the shadows. Tabby hadn’t noticed, but Lynd had dropped low, and was motioning her to keep quiet. She dropped too, and scuttled over.

Officer Coyle stood below, speaking on the payphone. He looked even worse now, twitchy and listing side to side. “It’s the wind,” he said, his voice carrying. “Messing with my head. No, she’s not on the roof, are you…” he gave a quick glance up anyway. “Look, the mom probably took her home…then you come get her!”

Lynd gave her a questioning look. Now it was her turn to shush him.

“Man, give me one good reason not to bail. Your VB map sucks, security’s way tougher than you said, he’s got the fuckin’ bureau chief as backup, he’s got a Markstepper—yeah, you heard me, I saw his eyes. Why’s it gotta be tonight?”

He waited a bit. His haggard face turned furious. “You blackmailing little shit.” He had a few more choice words for his co-conspirator, before finally announcing he’d ‘do it’, and slamming the phone down.

“We gotta get down there,” Tabby said. “There’s something wrong with that guy; I don’t want Melanie in there with him. C’mon, do your thing!” She pointed at his bracelet. He pointed in turn to a metal ladder attached to the side of the building. “Less noticeable,” he said. Tabby tried to hide her disappointment.

“Is this really smart?” Lynd said. “It might be you he was talking about.”

“Who else even knows I’m here? It’s gotta be Melanie he’s after. Mr. Kitz has something he wants and he’s gonna take a hostage.” The freezing rungs hurt her skin even as she almost slipped on them. It was a maddeningly long climb down, but soon she hopped off the bottom rung, sneakers hitting the muddy grass.

“Wait!” Lynd called from behind her. He put a hand on her shoulder. She ripped it away, so quickly that he flinched back. “I—I’m truly sorry you have been dragged into this. But this might be your last chance to turn back.”

“What makes you think I want to turn back?!” Tabby snapped, wheeling around to face him. “My life here is over. There’s nothing to go back to. Why do you think I was—” she sputtered as she pointed at the train tracks. “So if you’re gonna stop me from saving my friend, then take me with you. Take me where they’ve never seen a train before. Because whatever you’ve got going on, it’s better than here.”

There were raised voices from behind the station’s thin walls. Rita’s, Durkin’s, and Coyle’s. One of the roof lights flickered and blacked out. The wind whipped their hair like it could carry both of them away. “If you really mean that,” Lynd said, “I could. All I would ask is that you help me in return.”

It was the way he said it, so calm and matter-of-fact, that made her turn around. She’d been saying that, something like it, for years. But it was all just venting. Idle dreaming. Right? She couldn’t just…leave it all behind. Could she?

Not even a second later, a loud thunk sounded from inside, and Rita started screaming. “He’s dead! Oh my God!”

“But if you mean to rescue them, it will be without me. I’ll do what I can from out here, but the Ward is too strong, and getting stronger; this is as close as I can get.”

Tabby was barely listening. She strode up the sidewalk and towards the front door. Actively looks for trouble. Hell yeah. Enjoys causing chaos. You know it. And if curiosity was going to kill this cat, she’d go down clawing.

[cosmicgrapevine]

“This is ridiculous,” Durkin snapped. “Commander, why are you letting that bitch drag you around by the balls?”

            “The Kitzes have done more for this city than you’ll ever know, son. They get to call in a favor now and then,” McCormack said. “So, didja talk to Coyle? Did he leave?”

            “Jay Coyle was here? Huh?”

            “…Yeah? Didn’t he talk to you?”

            “He’s still suspended from the force. He shouldn’t even have a key to the building.”

            The wind picked up and the windows rattled. McCormack fumbled for his radio. “Hey, Fred, we got a little hair in the soup here. Watch out for Coyle, he’s—”

            A strange noise came out the speaker. The ‘organ music’ from the Ward, but in a distorted, squealing minor key. “Shit,” McCormack said, switching it off. “Both of you, don’t move. I’ll be right back.” He hurried toward the saferoom.

            Durkin sighed, got up and stretched. “What a weird fuckin’ night,” he muttered.

            “Tell me about it.”

            “So, why are you here? I mean the real reason.”

            “None of your business, that’s why,” she said, ignoring the fact that, in his situation, she’d also be begging for answers.

            “I’m making it my business.” He paused. “How’s my sister?”

            “Still a bitch. Did you expect anything else?”

            “Heh. Not really.” He moved closer. “Between you and me, Jessie ain’t exactly leaving room for Jesus either. Probably why she yaps about you so much. Keeps the focus off her. And she’s gonna love this one: you and some dirty-ass illiterate street kid both get arrested, and you needed his dick so bad you fucked in the broom closet.”

            Tabby, heart beating quickly, noticed with dismay there was nothing to throw at him and run. The chairs were bolted to the floor, and the fire extinguisher was on the opposite wall. He’d cornered her without her realizing it. “That’s not what happened, you fucking creep,” she growled.

            “Hey, who’s gonna know otherwise? And maybe I don’t tell her.”

            “Go away.” His cigarette breath hit her face.

            “Maybe you could do something nice for me instead.” He put a hand down her sweater. She pulled away, but his other arm caught her torso and forced her against the wall.

            “Fuck you!” She tried to knee him in the crotch, but he blocked it with his own leg. “Someone help!”

            “What’s wrong, you slut? You do this all the time at school, what’s the—agh! Fuck!”

            A stapler, thrown from behind, collided with the back of Durkin’s skull. He whipped around to see his assailant. A stream of blood stained his collar. His grasp loosened. Tabby bolted from his reach, to where her mother stood, her arm still extended. Mrs. Kitz and McCormack were there too now, running down from the stairwell.

            Rita pointed at him. “Sir, this man just sexually assaulted my daughter. I caught him in the act. I want him off your goddamn force and I want it now.” Tabby, clinging to her for the first time in who knew how long, nodded fiercely, not quite able to speak.

            Mrs. Kitz recoiled, her face a mix of anguish and fury. McCormack’s jaw dropped. He wordlessly motioned Durkin over, moving like a man in a dream. One weak “You son of a bitch,” when their eyes met was all he said.

            “And you! Your story was fake!” She looked at Mrs. Kitz. “There’s no boy here. Tabitha Katherine, we are leaving now, and you will all be hearing from my lawyer.”

            “Lockdown…we’re on lockdown.” McCormack said, shaking himself out of his stupor as he cuffed Durkin to a chair. “Nobody’s leaving. And there was a boy here, I saw him myself. Now he’s missing, Fred’s not responding, we’ve got a suspended officer going rogue…” he was pale and sweating. “Just…stay here, all of you.” Durkin rolled his eyes and jangled his handcuffs.

            Tabby wanted to ask him about Melanie, but he left too quickly. Mel was fine, surely. Mel wasn’t Tabby. Mel didn’t make stupid, reckless decisions.

            She looked at Rita. At Mom. It had been a while since Tabby thought of her that way. But Mom had just protected her. Saved her from something terrible. Tabby didn’t want to hate her mother, or the reverse. She wanted to have a normal, functional family, like everyone else she knew.

            And this could have, she would think later, it could really have been the start of something beautiful. If not for the next words out of Rita’s mouth:

            “So, high school boys aren’t enough anymore, huh? You’re going after grown men now?”

[cosmicgrapevine]

“Atomic physics, huh? You’re a real smart cookie. When I was sixteen, my plans for the future were to buy a Chevy, then find a girl who was into Chevys.”

“Please don’t patronize me, Mr. McCormack,” Melanie said, keeping her fake smile steady. She was listening from the bottom of one of the bunks, Tabby from the top. Once they realized they’d be sharing a bunkbed, it wasn’t a question who would get which half.

“Alright, alright. Just setting the stage. Point is, there’s all kinds of stuff out there we can’t see, but it’s still there. Y’know, gravity, radiation…electromagnetic, uh, somethin’ or other…”

“And what you’ve seen tonight,” Dad said, “is something like that. A bit more obscure than the others, but still. We call it the Viabract.”

He described it as a structure of hidden tunnels and passages, outside of but overlapping with “our world”. With the right tools and training, you could access it. Use it to cross great distances quickly. Set barriers called Wards inside it to keep someone out of—or in—some place. And most relevant to the night’s events, create hidden rooms within ordinary buildings, only accessible to those who knew of them and were actively searching for them.

“I wasn’t searching,” Melanie pointed out. “It just happened.”

“I’m gettin’ there,” Dad said. “The Ward on our house is almost twenty-five years old. Without upkeep, they’ll break down like anything else. And when they break down, the two halves start bleeding together. I thought our pal out there sabotaged it to get to me, but it’s probably…it looks like natural decay. Patched it up back in ’92—and yeah, that’s why we sent you to Aunt Joan’s for a bit—but looks like I didn’t do a good enough job. Mom and I’ll fix it this weekend and it’ll be good as new.”

“And after that, things will be normal again,” McCormack said. “It’s weird science, but it’s still science.”

“You’re the experts,” Melanie said, “But I’m still gonna go with ‘magic’.”

“Some people would say that, sure,” Dad said. “Personally, I find it a bit anti-intellectual.”

“If I told my physics teacher, or heck, drove up to Hyde Park and told a professor there, about the secret alternate universe full of invisible tunnels, and you get in by walking through walls and sometimes it explodes but you can fix it with chalk…is he gonna say ‘Ah-hah! Just like Einstein predicted!’ Or is he gonna call security?” She flopped to her stomach, chin perched on her elbows. “I don’t know what this is, but it’s not science.”

[cosmicgrapevine]

It was hard to believe now, but Tabby used to be on good enough terms with Jessica Durkin to play at her house regularly. Her big brother Mike was another story. Loud and obnoxious, with the personal hygiene of a chimpanzee, Mike made Tabby glad to be an only child.

And now, almost ten years later, here he was, working the night shift at the 22nd Precinct office. No one who ever left the neighborhood ever really left the neighborhood, it seemed. Like purgatory. He’d learned how to shave and tie a tie at some point. They probably spent two months on that at the police academy.

Mike gave her a nasty little smirk as their eyes met. Jessica had been Tabby’s chief tormentor for more than four years now, and surely plenty of her gossip had filtered up to her big bro. Tabby countered his sneer with a cold glare. I know what you think I am. And I don’t care.

“Evening, Durkin,” Mr. Kitz said.

“Detective,” Mike said. The fluorescent light buzzed above them. “…What are you doing here?”

“He’s with me,” came McCormack’s booming voice as he entered from the back. “Need to brief him on a case. Hit my desk a few hours ago and it can’t wait ’til Monday.”

“At the precinct office? And you’re briefing his wife and kid too?” Mike shook his head. “Is this one of those things where you talk me into violating procedure, and two days from now, Internal Affairs is tearing me a new asshole?”

Mr. Kitz put his hands on the desk and leaned into Mike’s face. “Nah, rookie. It’s one of those things where you forget any of us were here, because this is way above your pay grade.”

Mike met his eyes. “You don’t scare me, Kitz,” in a tone of voice that very much suggested the opposite. “I’m takin’ names. I don’t care what you say. Whatever you’re settin’ up, I’m not gonna be the idiot holding the bag.”

The process went smoothly until he got to Lynd, who had no physical ID of any kind and, when asked, could not say whether he was 18 or not.

“What kinda Charles Dickens street urchin bullshit is this? You got a last name at least?"

“…Ash.”

“A-S-H? Like the tree?”

“I suppose.”

“You supp—Commander, who the hell is this kid?”

“Durk, if anyone gives you shit for sloppy recordkeeping, tell ‘em to talk to me. Now let the kid through.”

[cosmicgrapevine]

The wallpaper was peeling, and not in the ‘creaky old house’ way. It was peeling inwards. It wrenched itself into bizarre spirals and folds as it disappeared into the wall. Or whatever lay behind it. Tabby turned away with an almost nauseous look, and Melanie felt the same: it was like learning that there was a fourth dimension, hidden within the other three, and her mind was trying to make sense of it. There was some pattern here, something her mind could see, but not understand. “Dad, something’s— The light flashed again, massive and blinding. For a split-second, Melanie saw that it was a shape, like a letter from another language, itself suffused with uncountable little webs and fractals. Then the wall itself started to bend. A loud groaning noise sounded throughout the house. Dad raced over, throwing Mom a piece of something small and gray as she followed. “Get back!” He yelled. Melanie grabbed Tabby and retreated to the kitchen. It looked even weirder from this angle: the wall bent and twisted and danced into a space that wasn’t there. The very bricks swirled and melted until it looked like someone poured them down a drain. The windows shattered. Dad’s favorite chair creaked backwards, then disappeared with a loud pop. Then, suddenly, no more noise. Aside from Mom and Dad’s deep breaths. They had, on either side of the…event, drawn symbols in the wall in gray chalk. Jagged, thorny symbols that seemed to halt the destruction in its tracks. They’d only lost a few pieces of furniture. And most of a wall. Which had stretched thin enough in parts that she could see the back fence and garage straight through it, and a tangled chunk of it just…floated, unstuck from gravity, in a way that made her dizzy. Tabby was the first to speak. “What the fuck.” She flinched when Dad looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but he concurred. “Yep. What the fuck.” Glass crunched under his feet. “Well, boy. Looks like you’re telling the truth. You couldn’t have done this, not in one night.” “It’s the mirror. Someone’s coming for it. Someone powerful.” More softly, he added “And I’m Lynd, not ‘boy’.”

[cosmicgrapevine]

One February evening, Melanie Kitz fell through a hole in the universe.

She’d put down her laundry basket, turned, slipped, and was instantly surrounded by darkness. Utter darkness, in an utterly vast and empty space that was definitely not her bedroom.

It wasn’t a dream. She could feel every square inch of her clammy, shivering skin, her arms splayed on an invisible floor, hard and smooth as glass. She didn’t call out “Hello?” or “Where am I?” She could tell that no one would answer—or worse, someone would.

There was a glimmer of light. She slowly, slowly turned her head. She could see her room. It was fuzzy, and the light swam in her eyes, but it was there. Even the clean laundry scattered on the floor. Okay. She thought. We can rule out ‘sucked up by wormhole, spat out in another galaxy.’ Can’t rule out ‘died and went to purgatory.’ Definitely can’t rule out ‘finally cracked from the stress.’

That was Dad talking. He’d trained her well. What do I know? What can I control? How do I escape? Three questions to ask when things turned dangerous. Stay focused, stay rational, don’t give in to panic. “Controlling your emotions, instead of them controlling you, is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Most people don’t even bother trying. They’re a bunch of goddamn animals,” he’d said once, after a gruesome homicide case he helped solve dominated local news for three days.

But so far in Melanie’s life, ‘dangerous’ had peaked at growling stray dogs and bus station creeps. This was something else.

She didn’t want to stand up. The floor felt treacherous. She could slip again and fall into this blackness forever. But there was nothing to grab onto and pull herself out. One knee, then a foot. Another, then rising on trembling legs, arms to her side. She was never much of an athlete. She was, she hoped, a future astrophysicist. And, if she wasn’t halluncinating, she just got a hell of a lot more to research. I can control my body. I’m turning around. Escape is right there. Step…step…

“…Are you there?”

That wasn’t her voice. It came from the void. It sounded close. And with that, her discipline failed. She screamed, arms flung forward, and fled for safety.

Reality washed over her like a warm rain. She fell back into the warmth, the light, the solidness of the only home she’d ever known. Her room was the same as ever, down to the half-finished application essay. And behind her was…nothing but the pale orchid of her bedroom wall. Her fingertips dug into the carpet.

“Goddammit,” she muttered. “It’s happening again.”

Mom knocked on the door. “Sweetie, are you OK? I heard screaming.”

“I’m fine, Mom.” She stumbled to her feet, eager to forget. “Do you need help with dinner?”

“Honey, your hands are shaking,” Mom said. “You’re sweating. Are you really okay?”

Melanie allowed herself a silent huff. Her dad was a detective; her mom worked for Child and Family Services. She didn’t get to lie much, not successfully at least. “You know how when I was a kid, I thought we were haunted? Thought I saw something just now.” She tried to laugh.

“More ‘ghost lights?’” Mom teased.

“Not exactly.” She described her brief journey to the void and back, stopping when she noticed Mom’s hands twitching. She left out the part about hearing voices. “…But I’m sure it’s just school stress getting to me. Obviously it wasn’t real.”

“Obviously,” Mom agreed. “But I’d be scared, too. Honey, could you get the soup going? There’s basil and oregano in the pantry, and the lasagna’s got another thirty minutes. Tabby’s coming at six, right?”

“Yeah.” Melanie went downstairs, but Mom didn’t follow. She usually insisted on cooking the whole thing herself. So Melanie waited behind the banister. Cocked an ear toward her parents’ bedroom. Mom’s voice was faint, but she could make out enough: she was calling Dad at the Detectives Bureau. He needed to come home early. It was important.

“Obviously it wasn’t real,” Melanie mouthed to the empty kitchen. Life around here was supposed to be predictable. Every cop on the South Side lived within five blocks, it felt like, and they zealously guarded their safe haven. Anything shady would be spotted by a dozen housewives and pensioners, peeking from behind flowery curtains, and filter up to their husbands and sons on the force. Anything that threatened to expose their own shadiness would be, similarly, dealt with.

Girls at school complained they couldn’t even spit gum on the sidewalk without it getting back to their folks. When Melanie was eleven, Dad looked her in the eye and said “If you blab at school about what I'm up to, people might die. Possibly you." She appreciated it now, even if it scared the bejesus out of her then.

She didn’t mind playing the yes-ma’am-no-ma’am game for one more year, as one of four hundred anonymous plaid skirts and white blouses at Saint Agnes’ College Prep. She had enough credits to graduate next December, take a few classes at DePaul or Northwestern or (dare she dream?) U Chicago, get her real life started with a bang. Get out of this place where endless wrought-iron fences formed a prison of their own. Her parents had plenty of stories about kids her age whose lives were already over. She wouldn’t become one of them.

Because she wasn’t stupid. Not about things that shouldn’t be possible, not about the impossible explanations they required, and certainly not about the tremor in Mom’s voice.

[cosmicgrapevine]

Melanie had never seen her dad move so fast. She was (unconvincingly) insisting that she and Tabby hadn’t seen “anything weird”. Then Tabby’s scream rang out, and Dad turned on his heels and charged up the stairs like a bull. Well, there goes that story.

She and Mom ran after him, and Melanie gasped at his gun, unholstered and safety off, aimed at this ‘someone else’. He looked human—but then, the rat looked normal too.

He knew what guns were, at least, and held his hands up as Dad pointed one at him. “You’ve got five seconds to explain this,” Dad growled.

The boy stepped back, eyes wide. “F-Fernando Cervantes?” He asked.

Dad advanced up the stairs. “I don’t like hearing that name,” he growled. “Especially from someone who just broke into my kid’s bedroom.”

“H-he didn’t break in!” Tabby stammered. “He appeared out of the wall!” She looked at Melanie and laughed half-crazily. “I was right all along. Ghost lights.”

Dad looked at her. “Nah. He’s very much alive,” he said, in a tone that suggested that could abruptly change. “In fact, to do that, this gentleman broke past the most fuck-off huge ‘No Trespassing’ sign he’s ever seen, and me and him are gonna go talk about why.”

The boy kept his hands up. He had an odd bracelet, a swooping, cresting steel band with a single white feather dangling from a string. “Sir…” he said quietly. “I mean no harm. I’ve been sent with a message.” He had a thick and unplaceable accent. His clothes were at once tattered and elegant, and his face could have been Mongolian or Mediterranean or Native American, or all three. “No more talking,” Dad said. He gestured to the door. The boy cautiously moved toward it.

“Sweetie, put your gun away,” Mom said. “He says he’s got a message, so if he went to all this trouble it must be important.”

“This is why I told you to take Tabby back to her goddamn house,” he snapped back. “Now look what she’s seen.”

“Take her—Fred, we are shelter-in-place right now until we know if the Ward is secure. And until we have your talk.” She smiled at the girls; it was offset by her desperate eyes. “In the meantime, ladies, dinner is served! Feel free to, uh, serve yourselves. Wash your dishes, and don’t eavesdrop.”

“I’ll know,” Dad added. "You are not smarter than a police detective."

[cosmicgrapevine]

“What if today’s the day?” Tabby whispered to herself. The day she’d come home, let herself in, and find Rita dead on the floor. The day she’d call 911 to report another overdose, but this time, Rita wouldn’t wake up.

She turned the corner. Dad’s car was on the street, with Uncle Randall leaning on the trunk and having a beer. Rita wasn’t dead, then. If she was, they’d both be dancing in the street. “Damn,” said Tabby. “Better luck tomorrow.” Randall waved and smiled, asking how school was going. She ignored him, as usual.

Dad was in the kitchen, counting out his monthly alimony. Rita insisted on cash. Like everything else in her world, banks were full of ‘liars and crooks’. “Alright,” Dad said. “Twelve hundred. Make it last this time. ‘Boss, I need overtime to pay for my ex-wife’s pill habit’ ain’t exactly a winner at work.”

Rita didn’t listen. She was glaring at Tabby, who was trying to sneak upstairs. “”Where the hell have you been? When I say 4:30, I mean 4:30!”

“Blame Sister Margaret. She made me stay late.” Tabby admitted defeat and trudged into the kitchen for some water.

“Oh, does she know, too? What am I saying, of course she does. The whole damn neighborhood knows my daughter is a whore.”

“She kept me to talk about an assignment,” Tabby snapped. That was half true. The assignment was an oral report on immigration to Chicago in the 19th century. At some point, Jessica and Beth (aka Satan and Satan Jr.) swapped her notes out for their own writing: a detailed account of her sexual escapades at Bishop Maloney, the boys’ school a few blocks down.

She’d tried to get out of it quietly by asking Sister Margaret if she could go tomorrow. Her teacher responded by reading every name and act on the list with increasing shock and disgust. Tabby argued that some of the names were just lies and slander, but that came with admitting that some of them weren’t.

The old hag had then crumpled the paper and pitched it at Tabby’s face, and told her in front of the whole class that if she kept “disgracing this school” she’d find herself expelled. Tabby responded “Do it then. Right here, right now.” It would make her life worse, in so many ways, but it would be something. Something new, something different. Sister Margaret backed down, but told Tabby she’d stay after class until she rewrote the paper.

“Don’t you snap at me! If I could trust you, I wouldn’t have to ask. So who’d Sister Margaret catch you with, huh? Was it that Davies boy?”

“She didn’t catch me with anyone, Mom, because she doesn’t care. None of the teachers do. It’s you. That’s your obsession.”

“Oh, I’m obsessed with stopping my only child from prostituting herself, what a terrible mother I am,” she said. “Someone has to. Your father sure doesn’t give a shit. And if I had two working legs I’d be chasing you down myself.”

Dad sighed, eyes to the ceiling. “You want me to talk to her? Fine, I’ll talk,” like she’d just told him to weed the front lawn.

The only photos left on the sitting room wall were of Rita and Tabby, and none from the past few years. Dad’s presence had been erased. “Christ. Why’d I ever marry that bitch?” he muttered. Then, to Tabby “Is that all true? You’ve been, well…”

“It’s called having sex, Dad. And not as much as she thinks, but yeah. Know why?”

He folded his arms. “Enlighten me.”

“Because Rita,” Tabby spat the word out like a curse, “controls how I dress, what I eat, what CDs I can buy. She won’t even let me cut my hair. But she can’t control that. And it pisses her off. Trust me, it’s not because I like these guys.”

“It pisses me off!” He said. “I mean, you of all people…you wanna be like her in twenty years? ‘Cause that’s how she got this way.”

“Yeah, I know. I was at eeevery one of those custody hearings. I remember all the juicy details. Rita made me go to show the judge how naive and innocent I was. Well, that sure backfired.” She folded her arms right back. “Ever since eighth grade I’ve been hearing what a slut I am. Teachers, other kids. Her, every day. Might as well prove them right.”

Dad rubbed his forehead. “You got one year of high school left. Hell, when you turn eighteen, a big chunk of that child support goes right to you. You can be out of both of our lives,” he said a little too happily. “Until then just…just make it work, OK? Your ma’s a big enough pain in my ass already.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“I know I’m a shit dad, alright? Been made very clear to me.” Like that made it better. “But you can’t keep living like this. Uncle Randall keeps trying to help you and you keep pushing him away.”

“Randall? Mobbed up, money laundering, scapegoated himself to keep his higher-ups out of jail? That Randall?”

“God, you sound just like your mother. Yeah, he screwed up. And you know what? He turned it around. So why can’t you?”

“Because I’m not out of prison yet.” She jerked her head back toward the kitchen. “So the healing cannot yet begin. If he wants to help me tell him to build a time machine.”

[cosmicgrapevine]

One of the women, who had a crew cut and a baggy flannel, groaned as she approached. “Look, if everyone can stop being so aggro here, there’s someone here who can vouch for me.” She craned her head. “In fact, here she comes now.”

Miss Vernon had been leading a morning expedition of her own, on how to recognize and uncover Viabractal entry points, and was emerging over the hill with her students in tow. As soon as she saw the Markstepper woman, her eyes went wide. “Eva! What the hell are you doing here?”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel welcome, Mandy,” Eva said.

“So you know her,” Lorraine said. “Can you vouch for her integrity?”

“Uh…her name’s Eva Moore, and she’s Willow Clan. Remember the Hanging Rocks parley in ’95? She was part of the peacekeeping delegation there. Did a really good job: only two casualties. And after that, um, we stayed in touch until I moved back to Kahoti after FSU. Anyway, yeah, she’s…you can trust her.”

Eva smiled.

[cosmicgrapevine]

“KENNY! Get back here, you faggot!”

The crowds seemed to part for Keith as he found them again. Some park-goers even laughed before ignoring him again. Just normal, brotherly fun and games, that’s what this was. Keith was smiling too, like a shark. Tabby looked behind them: nothing but a chain-link fence. “Is it still time to tread carefully?” Tabby muttered.

“I guess not,” Lynd responded. He didn’t go for his sword, though. Apparently he meant what he said about the Sumacs. This would be a fistfight.

“Heh, called that one too,” Keith sneered. “If they were here, you’d be too: you always hang out with the freaks. I’m not done with you, bro, I’m gonna—oh, again?” He said as Lynd stepped in front. “Didn’t I just beat you into the ground five minutes ago?”

Lynd shrugged. “I wasn’t ready. Now I am.”

That drew some oohs and ahhs from the gathering crowd. Everybody loved a show. Even the mascot was there. Tabby kept an eye on it, even as she screamed at Lynd to kick Keith's ass. Its own empty plastic eyes surveyed the crowd, including her.

Keith charged Lynd again. This time, Lynd dodged him completely, jumping backwards and bringing an elbow between his shoulder blades. Keith stumbled, putting his arms out and trying to get back on two feet. As soon as he did, Lynd made him look foolish again, getting in front of him and pounding him in the sternum. That brought him down and he stayed down.

Lynd squatted down and looked Keith in the eyes. “My girlfriend was trying to do you a favor,” he said, almost too quietly to hear. “Me? I think you’re filth. Violent, stupid, filth, ruled by your anger. I know what you do to your brother. I can see it in his eyes. He’s stronger than you know; push him too far and he’ll kill you before your dealer does. Or I do.” He stood up and kicked a bit of dirt on Keith’s cheek. “See you at practice.”

“Jesus,” Kenny muttered. “Never seen Keith eat shit like that. That was awesome.” Tabby nodded. She was still riding the high of ‘my girlfriend’.

Watching Lynd turn his back filled Keith with a new resolve. Grunting, he got to his feet and ran after Lynd. He lifted his right leg and kicked Lynd in the back, leading to a cry of “punk-ass!” from someone in the crowd. Lynd went down with a cry of surprise. Keith shoved Tabby to the ground as well, advancing on Kenny.

“So what, you got a fuckin’ bodyguard now, you little bitch? And he thinks you’re strong? Has he met you?! You’re the biggest pussy I know. Every time I kick your ass, you just stand there and take it. Ever since Mom died.” Kenny, looking like a scared animal, tried to dash away, but Keith got him by the sleeve. Kenny was wearing a loose, ratty sweatshirt, an odd choice for such a hot, sunny day. Tabby soon realized why: the string of black and purple bruises that ran up his torso. “And now you’re snitching about my little medical issue? What, you got a death wish or something? You’re that desperate to be my bitchboy? Fine. It’s all you’re good for anyhow.” Kenny wrapped himself up in his arms, trying to make himself small, make himself invisible.

“Jesus, kid, enough already!” Someone yelled from the crowd. “Yeah, give him a break!”

“Shut up and mind your own business!” Keith yelled back.

Tears trickled down Kenny’s cheeks, even as he tried to make himself stop crying. Something behind his hair glowed. His hair lifted, even with no breeze. A small, dangling earring, like a snake’s tooth on a chain, glowed a brilliant yellow-orange. Kenny muttered something. Keith turned around, taunting him to speak up.

“I said, I’m gonna KILL YOU!” Kenny howled.

His earring flashed like a cherry bomb. Behind him, several of the chain-link fence posts uprooted themselves. A portion of the fence rose into the air like a giant metal cobra. Kenny swept his arms through the air to command it, and it wrapped itself around Keith several times. Keith was flung to the ground, back and forth, one time after another. Soon, he was screaming in pain.

The assembled crowd screamed and ran. Their screams traveled through the crowd like a shockwave, and soon a tidal wave of men, women, and children fled for the exits. Ride operators, presumably deducing they did not get paid enough to deal with this, cranked their levers and flipped their switches, leaving many riders stuck in mid-air. They climbed, crawled, or jumped to the ground as best they could, a whole army of sobbing grade-schoolers and their panicking parents.

And in all the chaos, Tabby never noticed the mascot suit creep up right behind her.

I do wonder about the darkness level of my book. I think the overall tenor I'm going for is in part psychological realism: I don't like the stories where everyone's such a spiteful selfish bastard under a faux-nice veneer that you wonder how society even functions. Most characters who appear decent are decent, because most people are at least decent. But for the ones who aren't, well, I try not to shy away from that either. Travis and Rita in particular are both awful, awful people, and even some of the good characters have done some pretty shady things (although some really are squeaky clean). The scene I'm working on now is when Kenny's older brother, a roided out jock named Keith, confronts some of the heroes at a carnival and gets in a fistfight with them, and I'm trying to be honest about how he'd be screaming 'faggot' and 'pussy' at everyone who pisses him off. And to me that's not an 'edgy' thing, it's just another time-and-place detail.

But ultimately, ideological baggage attached to the concept aside, I want this to be a superversive work. Like, take Kahoti itself as a setting. It's a gated community with very explicit 'way-too-nice suburban utopia' vibes, founded and run by a very rich man. It's a bulwark against the supernatural that one of the MCs at first literally cannot enter, because his soul is too magic-touched. The dimensional portal within is guarded by a ring of mansions reserved for Florentino and his inner circle. I feel in most YA books the protagonist would end up destroying this place, and doing so would show that she's grown as a person. But it's a genuine nexus for good in the world: it may only exist because of wealth and privilege but it's better a place like that exist than not exist. And on a similar note, entering the Secret Magical World only really makes our protagonists happier and their lives better. Fawn and Jordy, the two of-age children of that inner circle, are friendly and well-adjusted because they've wanted for nothing and been raised to be heroes and it's all paid off. Lynd joins the baseball team because he wants to do normal-teen-boy stuff, and lo and behold he has a bunch of friends for the first time in his life. At one point Jordy has a short monologue to the tune of "Yeah I'm privileged, and you know what? Being privileged rules", and it's, ideally, supposed to be life-affirming.

idk. I can say for sure that I have a beauty-is-better-than-ugliness streak in me (or the Yglesian 'good things are good' if you prefer), and the make-things-as-miserable-as-possible style of storytelling seems just so played out and predictable, ethics aside. I think a work of fiction is the perfect place for it, because fiction doesn't actually affect reality so you can tell any story at all without ideological guilt. Most people don't know this.

[cosmicgrapevine]

"You can see now why I don't tell 'em shit. Keith's a roid-raging jock dipshit, and my dad's got the imagination of a potato and would think it's all Satanism anyhow. 'Exciting' for him is like, golfing with his boss. If the Lost Kids hadn't scouted me, I'd be...I dunno. Nothing good."

"And your mom? If you don't..."

"Nah, it's fine. It's been five years. I'd like to say a Mire got her, and I've been, y'know, training for years to take revenge. But nope, just regular old shitty cancer. If she was still here, I'd...I'd tell her everything. She'd get it. Even if you hate your mom, at least she's..."

Tabby raised an eyebrow. "At least she's what?"

"Just, that's crazy, right? The dude who bashed her up in the '70s is the same guy we're fighting now? What if she was a Warden too, and that's why she got hit?"

"Trust me, no goddamn way," Tabby said. "I wish she was like your dad. Every time I talk to her, she's practically begging me to quit, you're too weak, you can't handle it, you know I'm right...she doesn't control my life anymore and she's so mad about it."

"Alright, shit," Kenny said. "Grass is always greener, I guess." He whistled. "Damn, a mobbed-up Fullmire. Wonder if Ryan knows anything."

"Ryan? From school?"

"Yeah, his dad's firm did plea deals for a bunch of old mob guys who 'retired' down here. I'm pretty sure one of them is Ryan's steroid hookup. Keith buys from him; I wasn't kidding about the roid rage. One time Keith couldn't pay and Ryan came over here and was freaking out. Like someone was gonna come after him."

Tabby sat up straight, stammering as a mental lightbulb clicked on. "D-dude, go get Jevon. I just figured something out."

Jevon was summoned from upstairs. Justin was not, but kept his face pressed to the back window anyway, in hopes of hearing something. "'Kay, so last Friday, Mel went out with Jordy, and they went to Scooter's. It was Ryan's idea, and he went with. Didn't even do any rides or anything. And that's where they found that photo." She paused, letting it sink in. "The storage place was a setup. Scooter's is their real base. Think about it. All those tents and trailers to hide stuff in, employees come and go all the time..."

Jevon nodded. "Think you're onto something," he said. "Alright. We'll sit on this until Mr. C and the rest get back from Equinox, then launch an assault."

"That's a week from now," Tabby said. "C'mon, the four of us, we can take him."

"Yeah, that's insane," Kenny said.

"You think so?" Jevon said. "Show me what you got."

Tabby unhooked her feather. Energy crackled around her as it grew. She tried to stay positive, and feed those emotions into the feather. But it was hard. It had been hard ever since the storage place. There was some kind of mental block. She couldn't imagine what. She had every reason to want to get better, to want to catch this bastard. But today the feather didn't believe her. With a cracking sound, it stopped growing and returned to normal.

"You see? You're not ready for combat. And that's fine," Jevon said to her embarrassed sulking. "No one's expecting you to be. But if you try this on your own, I will tell the higher-ups. And if you think you're in the doghouse now?"

"You're gonna tell? What is this, kindergarten? Anyway, I won't be alone: we've got a Markstepper too." She patted Lynd's leg and smiled.

He didn't return it. "They're right. This is a bad idea. The Sumacs are a powerful clan, and we still don't know their true intentions."

"Jesus, you too? How come I've got more balls than all three of you put together? How many people are gonna die while we sit on our asses, huh?"

"That's not why you wanna do this," Kenny said. "You wanna show off. You wanna be the star. I get it. I was like that when I joined."

"But then," said Jevon, with infuriating calm, "We learn that we check the Wards, we keep the peace, and we don't go charging into Markstepper turf--mob-backed Markstepper turf--just because we wanna be heroes. Now, you didn't get that training, 'cause you're special," he sneered. "So learn it now."

You're not some hero, you little shit! Rita's words came back to her. She kept her stare intense and her jaw tight.

"Wait, it's not even about that. This is about your mom," Kenny said. "You wanna get revenge?"

"Fuck revenge, she doesn't deserve revenge! Maybe I'll just tell him to finish what he started! I can get him to fuck up your brother, too, because you're apparently too much of a pussy to do it yourself."

The backyard was quiet, the pool filter bubbling away. "Come on, Tabby..." Lynd groaned. Kenny half smiled at her. "Actually, I think Keith had it right this time," he said. "'Who asked you, bitch?'"

[cosmicgrapevine]

OK, so there's this subplot to my story that I think I can make work, but which would be very easy to fail spectacularly on. I wanna ask you fine people because reddit and my writing discord would get all weird and huffy about it.

So, four relevant characters here. Two (Dale and Rachel) are henchmen of the main villain. Two (Ryan and Shanti) are classmates of my high school-age protagonists. "Dale" is really a wad of consciousness-hosting Blackmire (evil magic sludge) who's been hopping bodies for a decade, possessing and controlling a Florida sheriff. That guy dies in a metaphorical suicide bombing, now Dale's just sludge again. The heroes have the sludge and are experimenting on it--they've never seen anything like it before and don't know how it works. Rachel, meanwhile, is a disgraced actress in her 50s who's been the big bad's milfy honeypot and double agent for the same length of time. She is still fully human; her goal is to let that Blackmire infect her and absorb her consciousness, kill herself, which sets the Blackmire free to take a new host, and have that host be an attractive young woman so she can relive her youth. She's been doing the big bad's work on the promise of a new body and is tired of waiting for it. Shanti is an ex-girlfriend of one of the secondary characters, who used to be on the main hero squad but used her powers to mentally destroy a few classmates, and got kicked off the squad and her own memory of the situation wiped. Because she has a mental block on remembering or understanding magic now, the bad guys are using her as a spy and she doesn't even remember reporting back to them: she only remembers her past when someone else brings it up first. Finally, Ryan is a rich jock (baseball team's star pitcher) with a lawyer dad who thinks (correctly) that Florentino is neck-deep in shady shit and is always nipping at his heels. Ryan is also buying steroids from the bad guys, steroids which are laced with, you guessed it, evil magic sludge. So: Tabby and Shanti throw a party at Florentino's mansion while he's gone all week, on the grounds that they're heroes and they deserve it. Also, so Shanti, under malign influence, can steal a certain artifact for the villains' plans and hand it to Rachel, who plans to do the body-hop right after. Once the villains figure out that Dale is being held there, they decide to bust him out too and use Ryan as his new host. Through some complicated series of mishaps, the Dale-sludge winds up in Shanti's body and the Rachel-sludge is in Ryan's. Both of them are absolutely horrified and disgusted by this situation. Rachel's a shoe-loving wine aunt suddenly forced to pose as a male jock who's supposed to captain another championship season, while the original Dale was a white supremacist of some sort and has refused to possess anyone not white, straight, and male, finds himself in the body of a South Asian teenage girl. Wacky! Did I mention that Blackmire can't leave a host body without killing it? The gag, so to speak, is that it could have been a 'villain says trans rights!' moment, probably will be if this thing ever gets published and accumulates a fandom, but both Dale and Rachel feel like they're in hell. They very pointedly learn nothing about themselves or anyone else and are both grateful to find some loophole that lets them switch back. Or maybe not. Maybe Rachel comes to enjoy being a 6'4" jock with a big pile of money and Dale has to beg her to switch back. It's supposed to be funny, if not wholesome, and let's be real to scratch my fetishy itches a little bit in an otherwise chaste narrative.

Anyway, this is the Trans Headcanon website, so I'm open to suggestions.

[cosmicgrapevine]

As soon as he entered the office, Scutaro's smile fell. He picked up the phone and dialed someone. "Jee-zus CHRIST!" He yelled into the receiver. "One more day of this fake-nice shit and I'm gonna start rippin' throats out, I swear ta God. You know what happ--here, listen to this shit. So this kid, eight or nine, he's playin' the ring toss, right? And he's shit at it. Rings don't even touch the bottles half the time. So he wins nothin', and starts cryin'. Then his fuckin' mom goes 'Oh, could you give him the big stuffed Snoopy anyway? It's his birthday!"

"And I says 'Oh, it's his birthday? Well, here, kid, have five Snoopies. Have ten! 'Cuz apparently your mom is the queen empress bitch of the whole galaxy, walkin' around demandin' I hand out free shit. Or maybe I'll just stuff one of these fuckin' beer bottles down 'er throat until she chokes. That's worth a free Snoopy!"

He drummed his fingers on the wall. "Nah, you're right. I didn't say none of that shit. Customer's always right. Wanted to, though. And how are...oh, you're bored, huh. Sorry to hear that."

He gulped. "Yeah, of course, boss. I'll get you some new toys. We got this, uh...college professor, UCF. Sleeps with his students. He's hooked on the good stuff, we can probably turn him by this weeke--oh, sooner? Or else you'll..." he nodded slowly. "I'll see what I can do. You'll have fun with him, though. Make him squeal like a pig, I bet."

[cosmicgrapevine]

All four school groups had arrived, and kids mingled all over the area. The Saint George boys—and they were all boys—were wearing matching tan slacks and blue blazers, school crest on the pocket. The Wall Creek kids weren’t in uniform, unless two-hundred-dollar sweaters and fleeces counted as a uniform. The clifftop offered a tremendous view, even with the sun setting, over the vast green hills and valleys. “Eh,” Charlotte said, “The Alps are better. More dramatic.” Melanie would not have to room with Lorraine, it turned out; someone had scared up another bed, and she’d moved in with Fawn and Charlotte Boussard for the week. She was the head of the AEGIS delegation: while the other two schools brought their headmasters, in Europe they apparently trusted their junior Wardens to travel alone. Charlotte sure seemed like the leaderly type. Soon after meeting Melanie, Charlotte ascertained that she was troubled, that the trouble was because of a boy, and offered advice. “Let him simmer for a bit. Silent treatment. Don’t flirt with other boys. Not yet, at least. Stay in a group of girls. Men cannot abide female solidarity. It reminds them that we don’t need them, not like they need us,” she said, with the airy elegance of someone twice her age. “Soon, he will be desperate for your attention, and a desperate boy is like a trained dog.” The conversation, like Charlotte’s black skirt and cashmere sweater, was exceedingly French. Melanie had never been a ‘silent treatment’ type of person, but nor did she want Jordy’s protection to turn into her crutch. So yeah. Let him simmer. There were plenty of other people to talk to. “This is my first Equinox too,” said a Wall Creek girl named Sophie. She was tall and muscular. At a normal school she’d have played volleyball or something. “I was always curious about Kahoti. You really just go to school with three thousand civilians every day, huh? Wild. Wall Creek, you can’t even see it unless you’ve been admitted. It’s Warded off to everyone else.” As they talked, Melanie realized that even Wardens had their regional differences: Sophie’s East Coast was the land of the Atlantic League, which had its roots in the colonial era but was now something of a private supernatural spy network, staffed by graduates of the terrifyingly competitive Wall Creek. Melanie’s Midwest was the domain of small independent operators like her father—and grandfather, who took the concept to its logical extreme in Florida. The South was the home of vast family trees patrolling whole halves or thirds of states and reporting to a chief patriarch or (in this case) matriarch. The West was a mess of gangs, cults, and kooks. “All the American traditions are a mess,” Charlotte said. “AEGIS is the result of every country in Europe uniting under one banner, and we’re at the cutting edge of modern supernaturalism.” “Yeah, ‘cause you almost wiped each other out in World War II,” Sophie said. “If you didn’t band together, America would have eaten your lunch.”

[cosmicgrapevine]

At that moment, the garage door creaked open behind them. Kenny lost his focus and the nails scattered everywhere, some of them bouncing off Tabby’s head. His dad started yelling before the car was even in park. “What the hell are you doing, trying to give me a flat? Clean this shit up, now.”

Kenny grumbled and bent down. “Guess I’ll show you later,”

“Show them what?” Mr. Boyd continued. “You stay away from my tools, got it? Why are you still here? I thought you were leaving for your trip thing.”

“Canceled. Last-minute thing.”

“Aw, lil’ Kenny won’t get to hang out with his butt-buddies,” Keith said. He was in uniform, swinging his bat around. He glared at Lynd. “I know you,” he said. “You’re that new kid in Coach Bob’s class. You think you’re gonna replace Will, huh?”

“Oh, they found a replacement?” Mr. Boyd said, his mood brightening. “Yeah, pity what happened to Valdez, but you’ve got the right profile for middle infield. You had much DP practice with Keith yet? Or is Coach Bob gonna move you to shortstop and put Delacruz at second? I tell ya, this is the worst Knights team in a couple years, so whatever he does, it better work.”

It’s high school baseball. My god, you people are INSANE. Tabby wanted to say. Mr. Boyd gave her an approving look as well. Maybe a little too approving. The other boy finally brought a girl home, it seemed to say. He may be a loser, but at least he’s not gay. Tabby moved closer to Lynd and nudged him discreetly. “Uh, I’m not on the team yet,” Lynd said. “Maybe soon. I’ve got some…other things going on.”

Mr. Boyd looked doubtful it was anything that important, but the phone rang from inside and he left to answer it. Keith sneered. “Yeah, we don’t need you on our team. This was supposed to be our year, bro. Me and Will. We’ve been playing together since little league, and we’re not gonna be the ones to lose the title streak. So you can fuck off.”

“I’m not here to ‘replace’ anyone,” Lynd said cautiously. “Moving to Kahoti has been good to me, and I want to give something back.” Tabby rolled her eyes. “You know there’s more than two guys to a team, right?”

“Your girlfriend’s got a mouth on her. You might wanna fix that.”

“Insult me if you want,” he said softly, his natural accent creeping back in. “But not her.”

“Yeah? Gonna do something about it?” Keith smiled. He wanted a fight.

Mr. Boyd flung the door open. “Kenny, phone! It’s Dean Hansen from school. Christ, it's always one fuck-up or another with you.”

Tabby flinched at that. It reminded her of too many nights in Chicago. But if Mr. Hansen was calling this number, something was up.

“Hey, Kenny, glad you’re home,” the dean said. “Listen, I’ve got a meeting with the county school board, completely slipped my mind. Could you watch the kids for a bit?”

“Absolutely. Be right over. Hey, can I bring Tabby and Lynd too?”

“More the merrier. Oh, one more thing. My wife tells me you called Fawn a bitch in front of the whole crew. Is that right?”

Kenny blushed and gulped. “Indirectly, sir. But yes.”

“Well, do it again and you’re indirectly banned from next year’s Equinox too.” Kenny agreed and hung up.

“C’mon, really?” Tabby pouted. “Do I look like a baby-sitter to you?”

Kenny looked her up and down. She was wearing flare jeans and a pink ringer tee with a rhinestone tiara on it, and had her hair pulled back in a clip. “Well…” he said and shrugged.

[cosmicgrapevine]

“It used to be a health resort,” Jordy said. “Back in the old days, people thought hot springs would cure anything, y’know, so rich people’d come out here and stay for a couple weeks. Then it went outta business in the ‘30s and the Colonel—that’s Travis’ great-grandpa—bought it for cheap.”

Melanie let him ramble. She’d been fishing for information about the Barretts and their ‘citadel’ all the way up, and Jordy had been the most eager to provide it. It also gave him a chance to share her seat, inching closer with each curve of I-75 until his arm was around her shoulder. Melanie didn’t mind. She kind of liked how corny it was. She’d seen it on TV a hundred times, now a boy was trying it on her in real life. She’d seen fake girlfriends turn into real ones on TV too. Maybe she’d try that one on him.

Everyone onboard knew they weren’t actually dating, so he didn’t need to maintain the illusion. But he wanted to. And she wanted him to. He’d turned on the charm, and it worked, and she’d resent it if he wasn’t so…well, charming. Did she really like him? The way he liked her? She couldn’t say. She didn’t want to ask herself yet.

Her spirits dampened slightly when she got a full view of the next week’s lodgings. “People live here?” She blurted out.

“Yeah, it’s…it ain’t the prettiest,” Jordy admitted. “When the Colonel bought it he bulldozed the whole thing, rebuilt it like this. Wards are stronger when there ain’t any fancy shit gettin’ in the way, he said.”

The Wards here must have been very strong, as the Citadel was a solid block of gray cement, broken up only by plain glass windows. The foggy valleys and narrow, rocky gorges they’d driven through to get here put Melanie in mind of some fairytale castle, but it looked like a Siberian prison at best, a nuclear waste dump at worst. There were several cars and buses parked haphazardly in the front lawn, and the hot springs bubbled away in the back, with their sharp chalky smell.

“Only Travis’ great-aunt lives here, and two of her kids,” Fawn said. “The top floors are for guests, and during Equinox, all the high school delegations have to stay on-site. It’s in the contract. ‘Cause killing Halfmires is fine, but god forbid we stay in Knoxville and party with college kids.”

“Fawn, you ain’t partyin’ either way, come on,” Jordy said. “Hey, looks like the AEGIS bus is here. You gonna room with that Dutch girl again?”

“Trudi? Hope so. You’ll like her, Mel, she’s awesome.”

“Wait, Dutch? Some kids flew here from the Netherlands?”

“Switzerland, actually.” Fawn said. “About 30 years ago a lot of the old European Warden schools put their funds together and built a new boarding school in Geneva. AEGIS stands for something in French, I forget what. The other two schools sending student reps are St. George’s in Memphis, and Wallenbrook in Pennsylvania.”

“Well, they all sound…fancy.” She suddenly wished she wore something other than old jeans and a Kahoti Knights sweatshirt.

“The AEGIS kids are pretty cool. All Americans are the same to them, I guess.” Fawn said. “The others, though, yeah, we’re trashy new money to them. Especially the Georgies. Your grandpa’s been gnawing off bits of their Gulf Coast territory for years and they hate him for it. Well, too bad, guys, it’s not the 1800s anymore.”

[cosmicgrapevine]

Hey weird-esoterica-shit side of tumblr, is there any esoterica/occult/conspiratorial/etc connection or significance to the letters AVC, in that order? It's for The Book. (The abbreviation of 'Acquaviva Circle, the town's ritziest neighborhood where Florentino lives. It contains an artifical pond--the titular 'water of life'--that will become significant in a supernatural ritual later in the story.)