Katalepsis 2.9

Siege plot. Let's start our seige plot. See if Evelyn's robospiders are any use after all.

Anticlimax is often far more challenging to accept than the release of action. All the best stories build up and up, then explode from sheer pressure. We expect our lives to work the same way.

From all the firsthand accounts I've ever heard, that's basically how war is. As a rule.

For years I believed in my own special susceptibility to that lure, the temptation to see one's life as a story, with myself cast in the role of the hounded, persecuted protagonist; paranoid schizophrenics slide down that slippery slope with such ease. But we all do it, contort ourselves into narratives, each of us our own hero, expecting the dramatic climax which never comes.

You see yourself as the main character of a story, Heather? Really? Why, from your word choice and way of speaking I never would have guessed that.

Which was my theory for why Raine couldn't sleep that night.

After the standoff in the underground car park, Raine had route-marched me back to campus to pick up Evelyn. Her cheery exterior and borderline dirty jokes failed to cover up the backward glances, the firm grip on my hand, the wire-tightness in her every muscle. My adrenaline ran out, spent, dissipated by the regular pedestrians and streetlights and the sounds of early evening drinking on campus.

I was dead on my feet by the time we got back to the Medieval Metaphysics room. I'd half thought to sit down for five minutes, rest my legs and my mind, but Evelyn was ready to leave and Raine made sure we didn't linger. She hurried us out into the corridor, then paused before locking the door.

Heh, no, no I don't think that's what's going on with Raine right now Heather. What she's doing is just being pragmatically ready for any eventualities, with experience as her guide. Trying to ensure that, ideally, anything that DOES happen ends as limply and anticlimactically as nothing happening would have been.

"You've booby-trapped this, right, Evee? In case?"

Evelyn turned a cold shoulder. "Of course I did," she snapped.

Down the stairwell and back out into the night, my hand in Raine's and my reserves sputtering on empty, eyelids heavy and feet like lead. We left campus and skirted the northern edge of the student quarter, past old red brick Victorian houses and flickering streetlights. The second time I'd taken this route hand in hand with Raine. Exhausted notions flitted through my head. Didn't I need a change of clothes, a shower, my toothbrush? I felt unclean, sweat-soaked, stinking.

But I was too tired to care—physically, emotionally, spiritually. My other hand gripped Maisie's t-shirt, stuffed in my coat pocket.

Raine noticed, bless her. She squeezed my hand. "You holding up okay?"

I almost said What do you think? But I restrained my exhausted sarcasm. She'd asked a practical question. Raine was nothing if not practical that night.

"I'm fine," I said.

"You've gone real quiet, that's all."

"I'm tired."

It was the truth.

It's been a long day with a lot of physical and mental exercise, for Heather even moreso than the other two.

I had a companion in sullen silence. Evelyn had barely spoken since we'd picked her up. Stormy-faced and shoulders hunched, she stomped on a few paces ahead of us, walking stick clacking against the pavement. Was she used to this panic and flight, this interruption of routine? Or was it my fault again, an imposition, a threat brought down on us by my stupid, needy naivety?

Heather, if it weren't for you Evelyn's body would be in a vault in the Fleaman Republic's area 51 equivalent on dogworld. Trust me, you're good.

Spirit life ebbed and flowed through those rotten streets, wolf-faced monsters and ghoul-limbed apes and worse lurking at the ends of the roads. They trailed us, closed ranks as we passed, watched and followed and stalked—but at a further distance than before. A respectful distance, I thought.

They still left me queasy. Ingrained habit and discipline made me avert my eyes. But the old fear bothered me less than ever before.

Just exhaustion, I told myself. Too tired to care.

"Ghoul-limbed apes." As in, apes whose limbs are skeletal and corpselike relative to their bodies, or apes whose limbs are - individually - ghouls?

​Anyway, the PSF are avoiding them more than they've been doing since Heather started wearing the glyph. Maybe they're skittish because of the nightgaunt's recent passage, or maybe there's something Heather or Evelyn is giving off that intimidates them right now.

Evelyn's house, at least, offered sanctuary. Number 12 Barnslow Drive loomed out of the night, just as weed-choked and leering as I remembered from the first time, dark and brooding in grand disrepair.

Evelyn unlocked the front door, slapped the lights on, and almost slammed her walking stick down against the wall. Raine steered me inside and deposited me just beyond the doormat, wobbly legs and all, but then she stepped back out.

"Just to check," she said.

Evelyn slipped off her shoes and stomped over toward the stairs, saying nothing as I struggled to unlace my trainers. Raine returned, locked the front door, and checked the locks twice. Then she turned to both of us and clapped her hands together.

"Right, we— Evee? Where are you going?"

"My bedroom." She did not turn around.

"Evee, we need to prep the place."

"This house looks after itself well enough."

"Evee—"

"Leave me alone. Wake me if they drive a car bomb up the garden path."

The control panel for the robospiders is probably in her bedroom. She may or may not be able to actually use it, of course, but I'm sure she'll try.

She waved a hand over her shoulder in dismissal, then mounted the stairs. Raine sighed and flashed an apologetic smile at me. She actually looked a bit lost, for once.

"I'm going to sit down before I fall down," I said.

"Yeah, good, good, you do that. Drink some water, hydrate. I need to … go deal." Raine nodded at Evelyn's retreating back.

Read: Evelyn will need someplace to sit down while she wrestles with the robospider controls, and Raine's face is available.

I had zero energy to either act as peacemaker or indulge my immature curiosity about their relationship. Taking my shoes off presented challenge enough. Raine ruffled my hair and then hurried upstairs.

Not even gonna ask to join? Dang, Heather really is tired.

Rudderless and aching, I wandered across the junk-filled front room, past the stain on the floorboards from two weeks ago, through the darkness in the kitchen, and into the most comfortable place in the house besides Evelyn's bedroom.

Once a drawing room or dining room, it had since gone to seed, but remained warm and cosy. Two radiators worked hard against the encroaching evening cold. A huge, ancient CRT television lay dead in one corner, probably last switched off some time in the '80s, joined in further retro-junk aesthetic by the fossilised lava lamp on the mantelpiece, over the very empty and very bricked-up fireplace.

"Fossilized lava lamp." Lovely phrasing, even if "crystalized" might be more geologically correct.

Two cramped bay windows peered out across the front garden, both heavily curtained, one wide windowsill filled with the disinterred contents of a nearby box, mostly wooden masks and weird little soapstone figurines.

A brave soul had mounted a half-finished attempt to recolonise the room, sometime in the last year, I'd guess. Somebody had cleaned away the worst of the dust and piled some books on the wide slab of table, half-finished physical reading lists both academic and otherwise. Handwritten Latin translation projects lay next to stacks of Japanese manga. I swear the table was some kind of antique, probably worth thousands. And Evelyn used it as an overflow bookshelf.

Two battered sofas formed a loose L shape, almost blocking the room's door, draped with blankets to hide their sorry state. I sank down into one, then used the last of my energy to peel my coat off and fling it over the arm of the sofa.

Like this indirect characterization. Of both Evelyn and - through the house's preexisting contents - her family.

My feet ached like bruises. I sat cross-legged and rubbed my arches, wincing and grumbling to myself. Upstairs, Evelyn was shouting at Raine—at least, I assumed it was Raine she was shouting at; I couldn't make out the words, just the tone. A shout, a slammed door, some knocking, another shout.

"For the last FUCKING TIME Raine, I can't concentrate on the spell while you're doing that with your tongue!"

Raine came back downstairs and popped her head around the door frame.

I remembered that clearly. She asked if I was all right, if I needed anything. I said yes and no, and then she was off again, I think to check that the windows were locked. The last thing I heard was her rattling about in the kitchen, through the fog of oncoming sleep.

Hmm. Okay, maybe it was a little bit more serious than that.

Still. No sign of enemy action yet. Maybe there really won't be after all? Maybe. Lozzie did get away with the nightgaunt, after all, and she might have determined that Twil's attack was purely her own initiative.

Granted, she also probably suspects (correctly) that the others will want to steal the nightgaunt back eventually. In which case, yeah, striking first would still be in her group's interest. Damn. I guess it's mostly just a question of whether or not they were able to ID Raine and/or Heather and link them back to the Sayes.

I woke with a gasp, in darkness and silence.

For one very dehydrated moment, I could summon no memory of where I was or how I'd gotten there. Jagged alien shapes loomed out of the shadows, ghostly fingers brushed my throat, and my legs hurt like they'd been squeezed through a clothes wringer.

Tick, tick, tick.

The slow, regular echo of the grandfather clock in the front hall brought me back. I rubbed my eyes and sat up on the sofa, swallowing on a dry throat. All the lights were off, the room illuminated by a ghostly streetlight glow leaking around the edges of the curtains.

A mystery admirer—no prizes for a correct guess who—had tucked a blanket over me and propped a pillow behind my head. I rummaged in my coat for my mobile phone. The screen backlight almost blinded me.

Five forty-seven in the morning. I'd slept all night.

Well, the wildlife seems to have gotten bolder if it's probing its fingers all over Heather's throat now. Unless that was just a figure of speech for how tight her throat is. If the latter, she should probably stop using those kinds of metaphors since her world really is full of ghostly creatures who could be literally grasping at her neck.

Anyway, yeah, looking at the end of the previous passage it doesn't look like Heather hydrated much before going to sleep. After that much running, that...yeah. Yeah, she's regretting some of those decisions now.

A secret admirer tucked her in, you say? Oh yes tentacle gorilla I knew we'd be seeing more of you.~

Filthy and fuzzy-mouthed, I stood up and stretched—and discovered the unbelievable muscle ache in my legs, punishment for the trek across the city yesterday. I sat back down and gingerly probed my thighs, wincing and hissing. My stomach added a further complaint. Hadn't eaten a bite since yesterday morning.

My mysterious benefactor had also left a tall glass of water on the table, along with a sandwich wrapped in cling film. I downed the water and unwrapped the sandwich—peanut butter—and silently thanked Raine as I all but inhaled it in four bites.

Tentaclegorilla off crying in the corner while Raine gets the credit.

Delicious quiet and calm enveloped the house, ordered by the regular ticking of the grandfather clock and the distant passing of cars deeper in the city.

Goddamn these absolute banger lines. "Delicious quiet, ordered by the ticking of the clock." That use of the word "ordered." Why can't I think of shit like that? Why can't I prose this well?

After the frantic rush of yesterday, I loved the comfortable darkness. No spirits to bother me. Space to think and decompress; I closed my eyes for a minute and just soaked in that feeling as I flexed my aching calf muscles.

I wasn't the only early riser, apparently. The other sofa cradled the remains of a second makeshift bed, a couple of cushions and a crumpled blanket. Cold and empty now.

"Raine?" I said out loud, but she was elsewhere.

The enclosing, womb-like heat of the house had ebbed away, but I didn't want to put my coat back on, didn't want to banish this comfy feeling and start thinking practical thoughts just yet. I kept yesterday at mental arm's length. Time enough later. I pulled the blanket off the sofa and wrapped it around my shoulders.

Number 12 Barnslow Drive was laid out in a big interconnected circle with a few rooms jutting off as dead ends. I wandered into the front room , poked my head into a sort of disused sitting room, and peered around in the kitchen. Was I alone? Had Raine and Evelyn been abducted by space aliens or werewolves or creatures from dimension X?

Or, like. The people who you were expecting to attack. They could have also done it.

Not that they'd have left Heather alone, in that case. But I don't think any of those other possible culprits would have either lol.

I raided the fridge. A couple of cheese sticks and a piece of bread kept me going, washed down with apple juice. I unearthed a bottle of mouthwash in the downstairs bathroom, and did the best I could without a toothbrush.

At last, I found Raine, in the long utility room behind the kitchen, a hiding place for a few modern appliances and exposed plumbing. A wide window and a glass-panneled door looked out on the jungle of the back garden.

Raine was sat on an old, broken-backed sofa, staring at the huge tree rustling in the wind.

Oh, there she is. Evelyn either still asleep, or doesn't want to be disturbed. Raine is keeping her eye on that evil lawn spirit in the meantime; she doesn't like how it's been shaking the tree around recently.

"Morning," I murmured.

She looked up in surprise, then brightened into a smile. "Morning yourself. Can't sleep?"

My word, did she look good. Perhaps it was the low light, or my own state of mind, or maybe for Raine it really was that effortless. She'd shed her jacket but left the black polo-neck on underneath, trim and athletic. She ran a hand through her chestnut hair, took a deep breath, and stretched. I enjoyed that sight very much. Didn't say that part out loud, though.

"Just woke up," I said. "I'm quite well rested, actually, I think. Though my legs do ache quite badly."

"You haven't eaten since yesterday morning, have you?"

"I found the sandwich, thank you. What are you doing in here?"

Raine's smile turned self-mocking. "Watching the back garden in case somebody climbs over the fence."

Click to shrink...

And that too I guess, heh.

That said, does she actually have a view of the entire back fence from where she's sitting? Depends on how the yard is shaped and structured, I guess.

"Are we really in danger?"

"No, no, I don't think so. I probably overreacted. But, hey." She shrugged. "That's what I'm for."

"Do you mind if I sit down?"

Raine started to rise. "We should go back to the sitting room, it's warmer in there."

"No. I want to sit here, with you. In secret."

Click to shrink...

Oh? What's this now?

Raine raised her eyebrows. "Sure thing."

She scooted over to make room. I joined her on the sofa and screwed up my courage.

"Are you cold?" I asked.

"Mm? Nah, I'm fine. I've been up and walking about, and I did nap a couple of hours. Don't you worry about me."

"I mean, would you like some blanket?" I flapped a corner of my blanket-wrap at her, heart in my throat.

"Oh! Oh yeah, yeah, of course." Raine failed to suppress a cheeky grin.

I think Raine is just too entertained with Heather's nervous antics here to cut them short. Even though cutting them short with a quick, nonverbal bypass would probably be the nicer thing to do.

I hid my rising blush as Raine shuffled in close, a token amount of blanket draped over her shoulders. She kept an inch or two of personal space between us. A bold, needy part of me wanted to ask her to cuddle, to hug me, but that wasn't enough. I wanted physical comfort, but I needed something else, something I couldn't put into words yet.

"Strap-on."

There you go, you're welcome.

"Those people yesterday," I said instead. "They weren't dangerous, then?"

"Oh, they totally were." Raine leaned into the sofa and hooked an arm over the back, behind my head. "But they didn't get a good look at us. Evee and I have been flying under the radar for long enough that they wouldn't know where to start, whoever they are, cultists or another mage or whatever. Our local knob-head altar boys probably know about this house, but knowing doesn't get you in."

I shook my head. "So, what now? We all just go back to normal? Forget we saw that?"

"Pretty much, yeah. That's the name of the game, don't get involved. Bottom line: you see any of those people again, you don't approach them. Leave, call me, whatever. Especially the thing in the trench coat, though the smart money says they never let that out in public."

"What was she?"

Raine shrugged. "Some kinda monster. Bet Twil gave it something to think about. That's the other reason I reckon we're alright—Twil's like the local rabid dog. They'll be fixated on her, not us."

"Oh! Twil, she—"

"She's fine." Raine fished her mobile phone out of her pocket, thumbed the screen and showed me the call log.

Huh, they're still in touch. Well, I guess even after their falling out Raine and Twil would both see the utility in keeping lines of communication open between their respective factions. There might not have been any such lines besides the two of them.

Anyway, Twil survived. It's not clear if all three of the cultists did. I assume they used their big zombie lady to tank most of Twil's attacks, but even so.

" 'Furry trash bait'?" I read the contact name out loud. It was the most recent call, several hours ago.

That's a little too meta for my taste, ngl.

"That's Twil. She bit my head off." Raine grinned. "Guess I deserved it, but she's fine. She's back home already, walked the whole way down the motorway embankment and along the train tracks. Totally hardcore, gotta hand that to her."

I think I'm on Raine and Heather's side here. Twil didn't consult them before Leeroy Jenkinsing that group.

"I still can't deal with the whole 'werewolf' thing. It's so … unnecessary."

"Don't think about it too hard. You'll get used to it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," I muttered. "How's Evelyn?"

Raine turned her eyes to the ceiling, as if she could see through brick and wood into Evelyn's bedroom. "Honest truth, I'm not really sure. I've known her a long time, seen her beat herself up over mistakes before, but this is different. She wouldn't even talk to me. Threw her leg at me and all."

"She … I'm sorry, what?"

"Yeah. She hasn't done that since we first met."

Ah. So Evelyn realized that yesterday was a long string of her own recklessness and fuckups culminating in a dangerous outcome beyond her control, and she shows her remorse by...throwing things at Raine.

On one hand, Raine deserves so much better. On the other hand, I don't think anyone is forcing her into this unless she actually is a homunculus or something.

" … excuse me? Did I hear that correctly? The first time you and Evelyn met, she threw her prosthetic leg at you?"

Raine cracked a grin. "Yeah! Bit smaller back then, of course, we were only fourteen."

I looked away and back again, trying not to say anything rude.

"Heather?"

"What on earth did you do back then, to warrant that?"

Raine laughed. "Why have I gotta be the baddie? Maybe she overreacted, you don't know."

I gave her a look.

Personally, I wouldn't question that at this point. But I guess Raine's expression and laughing tone of voice betrayed her even if her words were totally believable.

"Okay, you got me," Raine said. "I broke into her house."

Oh. Shit. We getting some real backstory now?

"You did what? This house?"

"No, where she grew up, down in Sussex. To be fair, it wasn't the first time we met, though it was the first time we spoke. Long story short, I saw her outdoors—one of the few times she was allowed outdoors, anyway—because I'd climbed the wall of the Saye estate for a peek inside. I was actually looking to nick stuff from the garden. It's this great big old farmhouse, sort of thing you'd be into."

"What were you doing in Sussex? I thought you grew up in East Anglia."

"Running away from home. Story for another time."

"I … " Curiosity grabbed me. "O-okay?"

"So after I saw Evee out there, I had to know more, I had to know who she was. It's not every day you see a girl with one leg missing. She wasn't like she is now, either. She looked a lot more … well, messed up. I didn't have anything better to do right then, and just the sight of her, it made me want to help, you know?" Raine patted her own chest, over her heart. "Stirred my noble spirit and all that."

Hmm. This kinda sounds like Raine talking around herself having an amputee fetish. Which would kind of go along with what Evelyn said about her having a kinda-creepy fixation on damsels in distress.

"I broke right in, yeah. Dodged her family and the, uh, things they kept in that house, and found her. Bit of a crash course."

"Let me guess. She screamed her head off and threw her leg at you?"

Raine laughed. "Yeah, spot on!"

Okaaaayyyy, I'm starting to think this is all just bullshit. We've seen the kind of security measures the Sayes employ. A random teenager without any magic, and possibly without any knowledge of magic, managing to so much as survive that let alone penetrate it...yeah. I don't think so.

Then again, I don't think Raine ever actually said that she was a muggle to begin with. She might have already known about magic, possible for reasons connected to her own awful family that she needed to run away from. In which case I guess it might be a liiiittle bit plausible? Maybe?

I definitely want to hear Evelyn's version of this story. I wouldn't believe her account in isolation either, but at this point I don't think Raine's is any more reliable.

"I think I would have done the same," I lied. If Raine had appeared in my bedroom when I was fourteen I'd have thought she was a walking fantasy. "What happened after that?"

"That, well, that's not really my tale to tell."

"Oh, Raine, come on, you can't leave me hanging there."

"I'm serious." She spread her hands. "You told me off once before, for breaking your trust, for spilling the beans about you in front of Evee. And you were totally correct, hundred percent, had me dead to rights. I'm trying not to be a hypocrite here. I don't want to lose your respect."

"Oh … yes, yes. That's a good point."

I was such an awful, intrusive gossip. Raine must have seen it on my face, because she hesitated and smiled. "Short version is I helped her with her family issues, and she helped me not, you know, end up on the streets."

Did Raine kill Evelyn's mom?

I think Raine might have killed Evelyn's mom.

Perhaps a team effort, but still.

"I want to know more about you," I blurted out, then blushed and rushed to correct myself. "I-I mean, about your past, you two. I feel like I don't have a way into it."

"You're already in, Heather."

I sighed. "Evee said some things about her mother yesterday. I made the mistake of asking a question."

"Oho. She blew up at you?"

"I thought she was done with me for good. For a moment."

"She hates her mum. Maybe start smaller than that?"

I eyed Raine, her bright look, her fluffy hair, the way she sat so comfortable, obviously not aching all over like I did. "Aren't you exhausted? Yesterday afternoon was far too much for me. Is this what you and Evelyn get up to?"

Raine laughed with genuine amusement. "No. Totally not. That's the sort of thing we try to avoid." Her amusement faded quickly as she studied my face. "I'm so sorry we messed up, Heather. What I said yesterday, I meant it. I know what that all meant to you."

I shook my head. "Feels difficult to process now. My sister might be alive, yes, but what does that mean? Grief was one thing. This is … uncharted territory."

"Your first instinct was rescue," Raine said. "I'd say that's pretty damn well charted."

"Survivor's guilt. Panic. I don't know. I left her behind. If … if there's anything left to rescue … "

"What's she like?"

Present tense. Thank you, Raine. Thank you.

"Like me, I guess. We were—" I took a breath. "We are twins. I was very different, before Wonderland. I suppose she'll be different too, now."

Yes. Yes, that is probably a correct prediction.

"Can I see that t-shirt again? The one with the writing on it?"

"Later. I don't want to get up, this is too comfy."

Raine held my hand under the blanket. She didn't need to speak. Everything I'd ever wanted in a friend. A partner?

What was I to her?

I was useless, by any comparison I cared to make. Raine was the quintessential action girl, capable and practical, good in a crisis. She was violent, a fact which still sent a strange sexual thrill through me when I thought about it in private. And Evelyn? Evelyn could do magic. She was half-crippled and spiky and acid-tongued and took no nonsense from anybody.

What was I? Weak. I whined about pain and got scared of a little adversity.

Okay. I understand that issues like Heather's don't go away overnight. I understand that self-loathing and perceived inadequacy are things that tend to repeat themselves in one's head over and over again with little variation, marinating yourself in them relentlessly, regardless of how much awesome shit you've just done to disprove it. This is realistic.

But it's also boring to read. Especially in first person.

"Yesterday," I said. "I was worried you might … think poorly of me. I could barely keep up. Maisie, she reached out. Evelyn did the magic. You're heroic—"

"Heroic?" Raine broke her silence. "I'm just an overconfident dyke with a Robin Hood complex. But thanks, that's sweet."

I cleared my throat and tried to focus, tried not to blush. "Compared to that, what do I have to offer?"

"Everything," Raine said.

I think you should mention the whole "thanks to you, Fleaman Delta Green doesn't need to find someplace to stash Evelyn out of the public eye" thing here, Raine. Heather's depressionbrain might have a harder time arguing with that than it does with a generic "everything."

I looked up into her eyes. No guile there. No humouring me. I shrugged and felt lame, with no answer to her sincerity.

"I'm gonna break my word now," Raine said. "When I first met Evee, she was resigned to her own death. She was terrified of me, of course, but once I broke her shell, I realised there was very little left inside. She was absolutely convinced she was dead within a year, two at most, and she was probably right."

" … what? What was happening to her?"

"That's the long story, the part I won't go into. It's her business to share or not. But the important part is that I didn't save her. I'm just a catalyst. Sure, I might be a hero. It's cool that you think so, but you're just as heroic as me."

Hmm. Sounds like either Evelyn's mom was planning to sacrifice her, or it was a "you will manage to learn the family magic even if it kills you" sort of thing.

Reading between the lines of what Raine said at the end there, I'm starting to suspect that it was Evelyn who killed her own mother with Raine's encouragement and assistance.

If I'm right about that, then for all that Heather's been going heart-eyes at Raine's casual attitude toward violence and thinking of Evelyn as "just kind of a prickly misanthrope," she might actually have things totally backward.

"That's nonsense," I said. "You did actually save me. Maybe you don't realise that."

"Heather. Read my lips: I think you're cool."

" … don't be silly." I had to look away, blushing and confused. I wasn't strong, or useful, or cool, or anything else Raine wanted to call me.

Raine was right about one thing, though. She was a catalyst—for a question I'd lacked the courage to ask. I had no greater courage this morning than over the last two weeks, but now all my defences lay in ruins, frazzled by the last twenty four hours and besieged by Raine's attitude toward me.

Oh I like that deep-cutting wordplay. "Besieged." They've been huddled up in the house all night because they think a siege might be coming, but they've seen no actual evidence that it is. Which is also why it's been so long without Heather having given Raine the go-ahead.

With clarity came the risk of rejection. I glanced at her and away again, twice, before I managed the words.

"Raine … do you ... do you like me?"

She blinked at me in mock innocence. "Do I like you?"

I sighed and almost rolled my eyes. "I mean, a-are you into me? I can't figure it out. Figure you out, I mean. I'm not used to it, used to other people in my life. I never had teenage years to figure any of this out, figure out other girls, navigate … you know. When you told me about Twil, when I thought she was your ex-girlfriend, I … I felt jealous. I-I don't know what that means."

An unstoppable, badly suppressed smile crept onto her face. "Do you want me to be into you?"

My heart tripped over itself. "Oh, don't do that."

"Do what?"

"That. You know what. Don't tease me."

"I can't help myself."

On one hand, not nice to bully her like that Raine.

On the other hand...I don't know that I could resist the temptation to do that either, so I can't judge you.

Raine leaned in close and slid her arm across my shoulders, bringing her face inches from mine. I caught her scent, of leather and hand soap and the subtle spice of her body. My mouth went slack, my heart fluttering.

"R-Raine—"

"Heather, I have spent almost every day for two weeks as close to you as I can get without freaking you out. We cuddled on your bed while watching movies. That didn't give you a clue?"

I felt frozen, hypnotised, heart going a million miles an hour. I managed a strangled whisper. "I … I'm not sure."

"Yes, you huge idiot, I like you a lot. I find you fascinating, from your face to your earnest, unguarded intellectualism, from the way you tuck one foot up under your lap when you're concentrating, to the well of courage I don't think you know you possess. Part of me … " Raine looked off to one side and wet her lips with her tongue. I felt like a mouse before a snake. I had visions of us doing it—it—right here on this battered old sofa in the soft darkness. My chest tightened. I couldn't breathe properly.

Heather. Heather, Heather, Heather. Heather.

"doing it - it - right here"

I get that you're a shy virgin and all, but come on. Please. This is just barely one step up from "he put his thingy in my you-know-what." Inexperienced or not, nervous or not, I know you're better than this, Heather.

She leaned back and straightened up, took a deep breath and smiled. Normal Raine again.

"But I'm not going to," she said.

"W-what?" I spluttered at the anticlimax, slightly offended in a new and bizarre fashion. "Why? Why not?"

Raine laughed and held up her hands. "Heather, I'm not going to fingerbang you on this sofa, because of exactly what you just said. You never had teenage years. We can take it slow. Know your own heart first. I ain't gonna take advantage of you."

"Don't be so absolutely ridiculous."

There was no other point in my life, I believe, when I could have done what I did next. Exhaustion made me capable—not sleep deprivation like I was used to, that bone-shattering tiredness which robbed me of all decision-making power, but an emotional exhaustion, a lack of any more will to care, a knife through my inhibition and trepidation.

I jerked forward and kissed Raine on the lips.

It was bad. Really bad. Clumsy and short, a fumbling moment of mashing my lips against hers. Lucky we didn't clack teeth. I ended the kiss as fast as I'd started, blushing beetroot red and unable to breathe. Raine stared at me in blinking surprise.

"Well." My voice trembled. "There you go. Deal with that."

Raine did. She leaned over and cupped my cheek. My heart was ready to burst out of my chest. I thought I was going to have a panic attack right there.

"Like this, Heather," she said.

She was much better at kissing.

When Raine pulled back I had to put a hand to my heart. My breath came out in a shudder. I blinked rapidly at her, then hiccuped. She laughed.

"Hey, take it easy, Heather, easy. Breathe, yeah?"

"I am breathing, dammit. Didn't expect it to feel like that."

"You sure do know how to inflate my ego."

"Shut up. Shut up and do it again."

Click to shrink...

This is something that a lot of stories mess up when describing a first kiss, or a first fuck for that matter. There's a kind of romanticism about the first time that authors seem to cling onto, even though they know from personal experience that kissing and all escalations of physical intimacy beyond that are skills that take work to develop. So, good on Katalepsis.

And yeah. Definitely better to have your first times with someone much more experienced, for all levels of physical intimacy. Virgins should not do it with virgins.

Afterward, we cuddled on that sofa for a long time, talking about everything and nothing, my head on Raine's shoulder. We talked about that old house, all of Evelyn's bric-a-brac, and how Raine wanted to take me clothes shopping. She confessed she'd been up most of the night, prowling the house, checking the windows, waiting for the assault which never came. I told her how much I enjoyed the comfortable darkness, she told me how cute I looked while asleep.

She told me I was brave.

"I don't know about that," I said.

"You managed to surprise me just now."

I find it strange that Raine still isn't pulling out the most obvious counterexample to Heather's assertion that she's a coward. Heather saving Evelyn wasn't just a big deal; it was also pretty much the first real *thing* Heather did in their lives. It was her establishing character moment, for them. It should be very, very easy for Raine to think of it. Why isn't she mentioning it?

"I keep surprising myself. I … I think I don't know myself very well, in a way. I don't feel very brave, though. I don't think that's in me."

By the time the first grey fingers of dawn reached across the sky, Raine had fallen asleep with her head tilted back on the sofa.

Hmm. How far did they go, I wonder? Just making out, or did the couch-fingerbanging actually happen?

What had I done to deserve her?

If I'd believed in karma, I'd have rationalised this as payback for all those years of horror. I snuggled closer, but didn't have the courage to reach up and run my fingers through that beautifully thick hair. She was warm and toned and strong.

No no Heather, you're posting cringe now. Romantic and sexual attention have nothing to do with how deserving you are. If Raine is into you, it's because she gets enjoyment out of being with you, no more no less. There's no karma or quid pro quo here. Avoid incel logic, please.

I recalled her body in motion: Raine with a nightstick in her hands; Raine slamming Twil up against the door; Raine creeping through the shadows last night.

I was attracted to the violence, on some level. Perhaps merely that she was capable of it.

Sleep did not return. I snuggled with Raine as dawn struggled to break, but caffeine dependency and my bladder conspired to keep me awake. Wriggling out of her embrace and the blanket was easy, but leaving her behind was not. I tucked the blanket over her legs and up around her chin. She would know I'd done that, if she woke without me.

You know, all this talk (correct or otherwise) about Raine fetishizing damsels in distress and then losing interest when they stop being distressed damsels, combined with how fixated Heather is on Raine's martial aptitude, is making me think that it's really Heather who is indirectly being called out. By the story, I mean, not by the characters themselves.

Like, is Raine going to stop being so appealing to Heather once she gets confident in her own ability to defend herself? Hell, will she stop being so appealing to Heather once she just gets used to seeing fights happen, without even partiipating in them herself? I feel like there's a strong possibility that this might be the case. That Heather isn't really seeing Raine as a complete person so much as a vicarious power fantasy.

And hey, that doesn't mean Raine is off the hook if she actually is doing the same thing in reverse. Or that it's any healthier. Just, observing.

Raine hadn't actually answered my question earlier. She'd kissed me, but were we an item? Did she really like me, or was she just humouring me? What on earth did she see in me? Compared to her I was scrawny and small, weird and pallid, with permanent bags under my eyes and even more baggage in my soul.

Her damsel in distress. In need of saving.

"You're far too hot for me," I whispered.

I guess it was only making out so far, then. That was always more likely, but good to know.

Heather's depression is still realistically repetitive and boring.

There would be time for snuggles later, and more if she pushed me. All the time in the world. Right now, I felt strong and empowered, lifted up by oxytocin and serotonin, warm and right and supported.

Raine had my back. I could do this.

I found a jar of instant coffee in one of the kitchen cupboards, so old it had probably belonged to Evelyn's dead mother. It sufficed for now, along with another cheese stick. Back in the ex–drawing room, I needed light, so I cracked one of the curtains to invite the grey morning inside. Spirit life churned all the way down the road, a hundred unnameable ghoulish forms, mouths full of teeth, ratchet limbs and slavering jaws, canine packs and slippery lizards. Perhaps this was part of what made the house the most supernaturally defensible place in the city, a vortex of pneuma-somatic life.

It could be that those are guardbeasts, true, but based on what we've seen form PSF behaviour so far I don't think so. More likely they're just clustered around the generator for warmth.

The old fear had faded. A decade of terror, gone pale.

I suspected why. I'd spoken to one of them, made demands, been obeyed.

Well, that spirit had been largely immobile, frightened of the demon messenger. Not some slinking, stalking thing which made my shoulder blades crawl.

True. Try talking to some others, then. Worst case scenario is that they what? Go through you?

I switched on one of the lamps on the mantelpiece and angled the bulb toward the table, where I shifted some books to clear a space. Evelyn owned some tempting titles, between the comic books and old paperbacks: The Conquest of Gaul with Caesar's original Latin alongside the English translation, and a beautiful hardback copy of The Iliad. Time for those later, as well.

Sounds like the books she uses for Greek and Latin practice.

I extracted Maisie's t-shirt from my coat pocket. Cradling it in both hands like the relic of a saint, I carried it to the table and laid it out flat.

help

How, sister? How?

Maisie's t-shirt did not smell of her, or of me. I sniffed it again to confirm. Neither did it seem like it had been subjected to ten years of washing machines and dresser drawers, which made sense. The strawberry design was not faded with wear, just utterly filthy. I rubbed the material between my fingers. It felt real enough, with pilling fabric and thin patches. The washing instructions on the collar label were clear as day, in English. Tumble dry low, do not bleach, wash with like colours.

help

Written in black.

Blood? No, the word didn't smell of iron. The substance had dried hard, more like tar than heart-blood. Were those Maisie's fingerprints whorled in the substance? I couldn't tell.

help

I lifted the hem of the t-shirt and peered inside. A scrap of black caught my eye. I lifted further and turned the garment inside out.

And there was the rest of the message.

Click to shrink...

Maisie why. Why did you think this was a good idea, seriously? Is this Eye logic messing with your decision making? Did you forget that humans can't see through things?

Half-mangled in a child's fingerprint scrawl, nowhere near as large and neat as the single stark word on the front. Horror grew in my chest as I read, tears brimming in my eyes.

I want to come out now. please come back and let me out. heather. heather I miss you. heather. where did you go? I want to see the sun again. I want to eat food. I want to stop thinking. stop thinking stop thinking stop. please heather. please reach. please I love you please. I miss you I miss life I want to leave please let me die stop thinking stop

The message resumed in a different hand, as if picked up during a later period of stability. A more mature hand?

I don't know how much time I have left. I can't think clearly when I'm not using the numbers, but with the numbers I know there's less and less of me every time I think. you probably killed yourself years ago. or maybe you're in a nuthouse. if you're not, you're the last link I kept. no time left.

Maisie had added a date below the message, in even worse handwriting, almost unreadable as if scrawled as quickly as possible with a shaking fingertip. 364 days from now, a year from yesterday. Was this her time limit?

It was. I knew. Deep inside, I knew.

Well shit. That's...just about as bad as I was expecting, all things considered.

Or, well, maybe it's slightly better actually. The second part of the message, with the mostly-correct grammar and more mature perspective, also identifies itself as coming from a much more recent point in time. Which means that Maisie is not only capable of measuring the passage of time, but also is undergoing something along the lines of "growing up" for want of a better term, despite being stuck where she is without human contact.

And she's able to send messages by nightgaunt now, whereas she couldn't back when she first tried to send a message, presumably shortly after being nabbed.

I suspect that she's been maintaining an interdimensional correspondence, using the eldritch mathematics language, with various nonhuman pen pals. The date she's given is a prediction of when she'll have been doing this so much for so long that he will have simply lost her ability to communicate with humans. Or perhaps lost her body altogether and become a dataform existing within the Eye or something.

Actually, thinking about it more, that last possibility seems pretty likely. The sequence of events that led to the nightgaunt messenger showing up suggests that Maisie is inside of the Eye, or at least physically adjacent to it. The talk of how there's "less of her left" after every attempt at real thought using the numbers, combined with that, suggests that what's going on is more akin to assimilation than just corruption or transformation. Eventually she'll forget how to even use her human body at all, and exist as one of potentially billions of infomorphs within the Eye. Maybe her body will spend the rest of its existence shambling around among the ruined city below, mindlessly scribbling worshipful formulae on the stone walls while "she" forgets she was ever anything besides part of the Eye. Her nightgaunt correspondences with other aliens will be as part of the Eye, interacting with allies or contacts of its.

I scrubbed at my tears and stopped crying.

help

"Okay," I whispered.

How, I didn't know yet. But I knew where to start.

Stuffed in the same pocket as the t-shirt was the pamphlet Evelyn had given me yesterday, Notes Toward a Unified Cosmology. If I'd believed in fate, I'd have taken that as a sign, but I required no further encouragement.

That pamphlet was the water and sunlight to the seed of an idea planted in my mind two weeks ago, when I'd Slipped on purpose, when for just a moment I'd forced my spongy, delicate human mind to comprehend the levers of power behind reality's surface, and yank them toward my own ends.

I couldn't do that again. The bruise in my chest would split me in two. To even think it was to invite nausea and pain and an ice-pick headache behind my eyes.

But the pamphlet gave me somewhere to start.

Cracking the pamphlet open right there was a terrible idea. Even a glance at the equations inside stirred terrible nausea. I began to half plan a strategy of empty stomach and sick-bucket. A difficult and disgusting task, but the Fractal on my arm protected me from real danger. If I took it slowly, I knew I could do it. I could do it for Maisie. But I was hungry for knowledge now, for a foothold. The first time I'd visited Evelyn's house I'd gotten one short look at a lure designed exactly for somebody like me: the study upstairs, full of books.

Darkness still lay heavy in the upstairs hallway, some of the windows shuttered as well as curtained. Floorboards threatened to creak, and I dared not fumble for the light switch. I didn't want to wake Evelyn, not because I felt guilty, but because I figured she really needed the sleep.

I picked the wrong room at first, opened the door on a barren bedroom, just a frame with a mattress, quite sad and lonely. I crept further along the hallway and located the correct door, the one with a brass handle.

Light flooded out as I pushed it open.

Evelyn looked up from the desk. Furtive and blinking.

"Oh! I— I'm sorry."

I'd surprised her in our shared natural environment, surrounded by tightly packed bookshelves along every wall, the smell of print and paper in the air. The desk, a meaty slab of wood large enough to sleep on, was littered with notes and old tomes and Evelyn's notebooks open on page after page of shorthand and diagrams. Two small reading lamps haloed her with light. She was wearing pajama bottoms and a huge, shapeless jumper.

She looked like absolute hell.

Her eyes were dry but rimmed with the raw red that only comes from a whole night of sleepless torment. I'd seen that look in the mirror often enough to recognise it on her. She avoided my gaze, showed me a shoulder, and shuffled her notes around on the desk, just to occupy her hands.

"Evee?" The pet name slipped out.

She glanced back at me, defeated and sagging.

"Do your worst," she muttered.

I was completely lost. " … excuse me?"

"You're here to yell at me, I know. Get it over with. I don't deserve any better."

Well, I guess we'll need to deal with this bullshit first. I guess that's a reasonable enough requirement, all things considered.


This chapter feels really weirdly paced to me. I feel like it should have ended with Heather reading the full message. Or possibly even with her and Raine waking up together. Dunno. There's also some tonal issues with those two things sharing the same chapter, I think, but mostly it's the pacing.

Maisie's story is goddamned nightmarish. But...if she really is getting to be pen pals with interdimensional aliens at the same time, it's a nightmare with just a hint of a seductive undertone to it. Which is very like some of Lovecraft's stories; thinking of "Shadow Out of Time" in particular.

If they're able to extract Maisie in the end, I suspect she might be the most powerful human in all of history. Like, course-of-world-history-changing powerful.

Will the siege actually happen, in the end? Maybe not. Hopefully they'll be able to get that nightgaunt back from Lozzie eventually, and hopefully through diplomatic rather than military means. That thing really is their best starting point for figuring out how to do a rescue.

Three chapters left in "Providence or Atoms." I really, really don't know what they're going to entail at this point. I'm eager to find out.