Katalepsis III: "Conditions of Absolute Reality" (part four)
The final four chapters of arc 3 bring a few character threads full circle, changes up the status quo, and - after sporadic minor clashes throughout these last two arcs - kicks off the brewing wizard turf-war plot for real.
These chapters are also all about challenging preconceptions. Both for the characters, and for the reader. Including the preconception that other people's preconceptions are probably wrong. The bits where people turn out to be right are as effective in this theme as the bits where they turn out to be mistaken.
The "conditions of absolute reality" title, in light of its origins, is...sssort of fitting? Dreams are an important component of this arc, but I don't think they're the central one. This *is* the arc where Lozzie becomes important, so maybe it's just referring to her even though there are other equally important introductions being made alongside her.
After the coffee shop incident, Heather completely abandons her old apartment/dorm/thingy and terminates the rent. She notably has the ability to do that on her own, without needing to tell her parents (she says that she'll need to tell them she did it at some point, but she didn't need to tell them beforehand). Which means she was already handling rent money before story's start, at least, which is more than I thought they trusted her with.
She also reveals that she isn't out to her parents.
“That was one truth I could tell them, almost as scary as letting them think I’d gone off the deep end: I’m living with my girlfriend. Lines of interrogation ran over and over in my mind. Yes, mum, girlfriend. Yes, I’m a lesbian. Yes, I’m sure, because she’s beautiful and amazing and she makes me orgasm like a bomb going off every night.
Things I could not say to my parents. Concepts I didn’t want them to think about. Ever.”
Which also kind of surprises me, from the way she's described them, but not as much.
Raine helps Heather relocate permanently and completely to Evelyn's fuckable old manor house, taking care not to leave any articles or bits of hair or anything behind. We've seen what you can do with a blood sample, and other bits of biomass could allow similar exploits. Until the New Sun situation has been defused one way or another, going outside will be kept to a bare minimum, and leaving things outside eliminated entirely.
Heather manages to deal with being kidnapped pretty well, all things considered. Enough experience hiding from aliens when she slips into other dimensions over the years has presumably hardened her against this type of trauma. The person who suffers the most emotional fallout is actually Raine. She was barely even involved in the coffee shop incident, but...well, that's the entire problem really. For the first time, Heather sees Raine drink to get drunk. Ostensibly to help Heather let out the trauma, but ultimately for herself to.
““If you say so.” I grumbled and sipped more tea.
”I do say so. And you know what else I say?” Raine sat back down with a smile and knocked back another shot of vodka – and slammed her glass on the table. “I fucked up!” she shouted.
”R-Raine?”
”I failed, you know that? I messed up, big time. I wasn’t fucking there.” Her voice caught.”
I don't know how or why Raine got like this, but she seems to derive almost all of her self worth from being a protector. It's not just her sexuality that gets pinged by damsels in distress, it's her entire personality.
I said before that Heather had little self-worth, but great self-respect. Raine is...I wanted to say "the opposite," but really it's more like variations on a theme. She thinks she has to be a full time bodyguard for both Evelyn AND Heather, and if anything bad happens to either of them then she's failed as a person.
Hmm. I wonder. It occurred to me before that Raine might be too sane to learn magic. Now though, after all the reiteration in these last couple arcs of the importance of projecting human will to make magic work, I think it might be that Raine lacks the ego and self-interest necessary to project that will. That fits a lot better than my previous hypothesis.
Could Raine do magic if she thought it was the only way to save someone she cared about right at that moment? Maybe. Or maybe there's a fundamental element of selfishness - that word might be too negative, more like self-interest or self-motivation - that she'd need to develop first in order for the universe to think she's important enough to heed.
What made her like this, though? Being with Evelyn seems like an enabling factor, but not a causative one.
...
These girls all need therapy, and none of them would accept it.
...
On the (possibly?) brighter side, Raine also reciprocates Heather's confession from earlier. And, the fact that this is coming alongside Heather being less of a damsel in distress than she was before, and with Raine failing rather than succeeding to be her white knight, makes me optimistic about this.
Unless Raine is just saying "I love you" as a weird sort of atonement for her bodyguarding failure or something. We do know Raine can be manipulative, even if her ends are usually benevolent.
““You know, Heather, I think I’m falling in love with you.”
”Don’t!” I whined. “Don’t say that while drunk.”
”Ah ah.” Raine tapped the table. “I didn’t say ‘I love you’, I’ll say that bit sober. I said I think I am falling. That’s different.”
”Mmmmm,” I grumbled, pouting.
”I’ve never been in love before. Been in lust a lot, but this is way different.””
I think it's more likely genuine. The fact that Raine is showing vulnerability and letting Heather be the one to comfort her in this scene, even in just a tiny way for a tiny increment of time, is a good sign.
On Heather's side of things, well...I don't know if this is Raine influence or Hastur-by-way-of-Lozzie influence, but the thing troubling her the most is how remorseless she is about sending that cultist to Planet Doge. Heather expected to be torn up about her first human kill(?), but she's not, and that doesn't seem right to her.
Not sure what to think of this, personally. On one hand, Heather did nothing wrong, and remorseless execution of necessary violence is an underappreciated virtue. On the other, it's also healthy and laudable to do at least a bit of second thinking about how necessary the violence actually was. Is Heather's empathy, formerly one of her most noteworthy traits, being dulled? Hopefully not, but it's an alarming possibility.
Evelyn is probably holding together the worst of the three, despite having had the most opportunity to be useful during this latest round against New Sun. Partly because Twil being in the house for a while makes her feel vulnerable and defensive and even more paranoid than usual. Partly because it's twice (arguably three times) now that Alexander has made a move against her and her friends, and she isn't any closer to being able to meaningfully hit back. Praem has been thinning out their pneuso-zombie constructs, but making more of those seems to cost the Brotherhood of the New Sun very little. Evelyn can't get a legal ID or record on Alexander Lilburne, or track him and his associates to any realspace location. Either he was lying outright about his family having a history with her own, or he changed enough of the details that she can't recognize who they might have been.
In short: while Alexander generally isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, he is very good at playing defence. Evelyn's usual brute force approaches are ineffective here.
Evelyn's way of coping with all these perceived threats to her sense of power and security - both the rational ones and the extremely irrational ones - is to basically lean into the silence, controlling tendencies, and Hard Men Making Hard Decisions. She increasingly shuts Heather and Raine out of her strategizing and war preparations, despite needing other people's input more than ever. Not to mention her reaction when Twil offers to tell her own faction what's going on and make an alliance against New Sun.
““Must you-“ she cut off and shot an apologetic look at me before resuming with Twil. “Must you run to your family with your tail between your legs over every little thing?”
”Oh, yeah.” Twil’s voice dripped sarcasm. “I’ll go ahead and forget Sharrowford might be a fucking supernatural warzone, that these weirdos might take over-“
”I am not in the habit of losing. I beat my own mother, a mage ten times, a hundred times more powerful than these petty amateurs. This is pest control, at best.”
”Then why haven’t you won yet?”
Evelyn’s glare could have frozen the sun.
Twil rolled her eyes. “I came into town to buy a video game today. Any of my family could wander in here by accident. I didn’t even know this was going on. I’ve gotta warn my parents, Saye, don’t be bonkers. I’ve gotta tell the Church. You’d do the same, come off it.”
”Then you can tell them to stay out of it too. Make that clear.”
”You sure? I dunno, Saye, maybe we could … you know.” Twil shrugged, the very picture of a sulky teenager.
”I know what?”
”Maybe we could pitch in?”
”Your lot? Don’t make me laugh. I’d like to see you try.””
Things come to a head when...well, actually things kinda come to two heads, but one of them ends up being a bit of a subversion. Let's start with the first and nonsubversive one.
Tenny is still circling around outside the grounds of Evelyn's house, staying as close to Heather as she can without coming close enough to trip any of the defences. She's also still pretty messed up from her fight with the New Sun constructs. I guess she's not as shoggoth-y as she looked, if she's able to sustain persistent structural injuries like that. Anyway, Heather feels very bad for her, and also wants to learn more about what she is and why she's been doing what she's been doing (her dream-memories of Lozzie are still extremely fuzzy). So, Evelyn pitches a "veterinary procedure" to reward Tenny for her help and also try to figure out what the hell she even is. They rearrange the furniture with the glyphs hidden on them, hang up new sigils at various locations to temporarily reshape and nullify the wards, and herd the spiderbots into the basement for a little while so that Heather can safely coax Tenny into Evelyn's workshop.
Proactive communication with Tenny is a challenge, but Heather manages it. She also, after a bit of experimenting, determines that she can touch, push, and pull Tenny with some mental effort. She describes it as something to the effect of "trying extra hard to believe in her" while making contact. Some of Katalepsis' best "eldritch nature doc" prose to date is spent describing Tenny probing and feeling her way around each new room and unfamiliar object with her tentacles, guided by Heather and followed by an unseeing Evelyn and Raine. Really captures the feeling of trying to guide a strange wild animal that got caught in your house to safety. When Tenny first enters the glyph Evelyn prepared, and finds herself contained within it, Heather works hard to calm her down. Evelyn describes this glyph as equivalent to a "catbox" which is adorable and fitting to Tenny's reactions to it.
When the circle is closed behind Tenny, and Heather has to work harder to keep her calm, Evelyn says the least comforting thing you can imagine Evelyn saying in light of her performance thus far:
““I have complete control and understanding of everything here.” Evelyn swept one hand to indicate the magic circles. She made very pointed eye contact with me. “I am neither going to invoke an unexpected effect, nor allow a runaway process. I can promise you that.””
And...it turns out to be even worse than what you're probably imagining. Sort of. Evelyn doesn't fuck it up the way that she has after every previous instance of "trust me bruh, there's no possible way I could fuck this up," but she was also lying to begin with. Tenny is subjected to something that looks like electrocution. Evelyn really likes electrocution.
The tension of this scene was kind of ruined for me by something, though. That something being an emoji, from the Katalepsis discord server.
If Tenny really got killed within a few chapters of her introduction, I figured they wouldn't have bothered having an emoji of her. So, weird spoiler vector is weird, but no less spoilery for it.
Heather and Raine both flip on Evelyn at this point. Even when, after recovering from her painful ordeal and limping out of the glyph, Tenny really does appear to be regenerating her wounds and regrowing her rent tentacles. When Evelyn explains what the hell that even was, well...
““I intended it to be lethal.”
I gaped at her, lost for words.
”Trojan horse?” Raine murmured.
”Exactly,” Evelyn admitted. She flexed her back, popping compacted vertebrae and wincing. “That spell was potentially lethal – if our mysterious tentacled friend was anything other than what she appeared to be. Trojan Horse, walking time bomb, demon in disguise, whatever, it would have boiled her like a lobster in a pot. I didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t have agreed. Measures had to be taken. As she is what she appears, she is unharmed.”
I cast about for help and shrugged uselessly, betrayal burning in my chest. “Why can’t you simply tell me these things? You’re still treating me like I’m … an idiot. A child.”
”She’s got a point there, Evee,” Raine said. “I feel a bit sore too.”
”You’d been in direct mind-to-mind communication with the thing, exposed, in contact, possibly subverted without knowing it. She began speaking to you on the very same day, the very same hour that the Cult tried to kidnap you.” Evelyn’s voice rose in sour certainty, snapping and biting off her words. “I have not been exactly well predisposed toward her. She has, in fact, been at the top of my list of potential vectors for the Cult stalking you.”
”Why couldn’t you just tell me?” I spread my arms. “Because you’re the big bad scary magician? You have to do everything alone? You don’t have to! You-“
”If I’d told you,” Evelyn barked over me. “And she was something else, then she might have gotten it out of you. Or detonated. Or done God alone knows what. Put you in danger. I’m not going to apologise, dammit, I’m not. It was a necessary deception. I will not allow some Outsider to hollow out your head because I dropped my guard.”
I swallowed and half-turned away, hurt – but not confused. I hated to admit it, burning with indignation and insult, but Evelyn was right. I would never have agreed to this, and if my good little spirit had been a demon or a Trojan Horse, she would have gotten it out of me, very easily.
”I will not apologise,” Evelyn repeated. “But I will-“
”Hey, Evee, maybe drop it for now,” Raine said softly. “I think we’re all a bit-“
”I don’t want an apology!” I snapped out at nothing, at the world. “I get it, okay? I get it. I just feel … small and vulnerable and useless again. Kept in the dark.”
”We’re all in the fucking dark,” Evelyn said. To my surprise, I heard her breath catch in her throat. “All right, fuck it, I’m sorry.” She swallowed hard, sniffed, and controlled herself with a visible act of pure willpower. “The whole reason I did this is because I’ve been getting nowhere, absolutely nowhere. No progress, no ideas, no leads – I can’t crack the Cult’s extra-dimensional bullshit, I can’t finish building that door, I can’t even find the bloody people who tried to snatch you. It’s like none of them exist. Grasping at straws. I thought Tenny, maybe, she might be the vector for the Cult stalking you, at least I could figure that out, trace her back to them. I can’t even stop these vermin from harassing my friend.””
I didn't quite understand what Evelyn meant here about the spell killing Tenny if she wasn't what she appeared to be, when Evelyn didn't know what she was even appearing to be in the first place. The author clarified to me that Evelyn's spell was one that's beneficial for "normal" pneuma-somatic organisms, but destructive to artificial constructs. Which makes considerably more sense than Evelyn's own wording, heh.
Of course, Evelyn's genius plan here doesn't account for the possibility that Tenny is a natural organism voluntarily recruited by the Brotherhood of the New Sun. Or that she's a construct sent by a friendly third party. Or that she's a type of alien or a type of construct from beyond Evelyn's admittedly limited knowledge with a composition that doesn't match up to either of the things she knows?
Anyway, considering that Tenny was nonlethally hurt and also had her preexisting wounds healed by the spell, it's pretty clearly #3. And, Evelyn is just lucky that it didn't go much worse than it did. The reaction could have been almost anything.
As Tenny runs off to a safe distance to recover and hopefully not lose her trust in Heather forever, Raine and Heather take Evelyn to task. And, for once, on account of them both doing it at once but also managing to keep their rhetorical kid gloves on, Evelyn is able to take their point to heart without also cracking down into a paralysed self-loathing spiral. So, progress for her I suppose.
““I don’t want necessity to make monsters out of us,” I said.
”That’s what magic does.”
”No. This is going to sound crazy and probably technically wrong, but I think you should have told me. You’re not in this alone. You’re not under siege alone. If Tenny had been a … Trojan Horse, we could have dealt with it together, because I trust you. Or, at least, I want to.”
Evelyn sniffed and looked at Raine for help.
”She’s got you dead to rights there,” Raine said.
”Look.” I sighed. “You’re so afraid of becoming like your mother – and no, I don’t know all the details – but I can add up the pieces. I’m not going to let you be something you don’t want to be. Next time something like this happens, you tell me. We’ll deal with the consequences together.”
Evelyn nodded slowly. “I’m … I’m sorry, Heather.”
”Good. I forgive you.””
This episode led me back into a question I've asked a few times previously: why does magic make you a monster, in this setting? Why are magicians all so insistent on competing, when it seems like cooperating gives them much more to gain?
I mean, obviously the story is trying to point out that the same is also true about magic-less groups of people in real life. But I still felt like there must be some material factors in play here that aren't clear yet, because otherwise the deck would appear to be stacked much higher in favor of cooperation for the wizards with their thirst for written arcana.
I was right. And the last couple of chapters - centering around Twil and her evolving relationship with Evelyn - start hinting at those additional factors.
First, after Raine and Heather get Evelyn to admit that her WTF handling of Tenny was really more about trying to feel in control and in power again than anything tactically sound, Evelyn agrees to try building bridges with other occultists. It doesn't go very well, but at least she does put in an effort. There are two others that Evelyn has the contact information for left over from her mother and that she thinks might pick up the phone when they see the number. First up is a fellow named Aaron.
““Hello hello, who’s this calling me then, hey?”
”You know who it is,” Evelyn said, staring at the wall with her arms folded. “Hello, Aaron.”
”And a very good afternoon to you as well, young lady. Caught me on my lunch break, you did, but I’d have made time anyway. Haven’t heard from you in well over a year, Evelyn. How’s-“
”One question. That’s the only reason I’m calling. Answer it truthfully or I’ll send an Outsider to kill you in your sleep.”
Aaron started laughing, a real laugh, a little derisive, exactly as a normal person might react to such a threat delivered via phone call. “Evelyn, Evelyn, you always were over dramatic. What’s the matter, hey? Do you need-“
”I think she’s serious, Aaron,” said Raine. “Hi, by the way.”
Aaron went quiet. Background noise filled the call. Raine raised her eyebrows and spread her arms, surprised at the power of her own voice. I nodded, had to admit, that was pretty obvious.
”Oh, uh, hi, Raine. Hi. Glad to know you two are still close,” Aaron said.”
Aaron is too terrified of Raine to continue the conversation, and will only talk again once he's sure that Evelyn has distanced herself from her. We never get so much as a word of explanation for this for the rest of the arc, and I sincerely hope that we never get one afterward either. 15/10. Gold.
Next is Felicity, who Evelyn is considerably more hesitant to call on account of her both a) being much older than Evelyn, and b) having tried to hit on Evelyn since she was a preteen. Yeah, hard to blame Evelyn here, I'm on her side with this one.
“Click. Line connected. Dead silence on the other end.
”Felicity? It’s Saye.”
Silence crept from the phone, like black waves, filling the room.
”Is that you or your pet?” Evelyn asked.
”Pet? Is that what you think I am?”
The voice from the phone was not remotely human. A nightmare approximation of young girl, squeezed through sulphur and darkness, high and giggling. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
”I’d take offence if you weren’t so easy to tease,” it rattled on. “My little beurre sucré. Bet you thought I’d forgotten all about you, didn’t you? You-“
Evelyn slapped a hand over the phone’s speaker. She rolled her eyes and waited for the sound to stop, then removed her hand.
”Evelyn? Evee? Evee?” A different voice was asking, low and soft, a hushed half-mumble. “Are you still there? Evee? Please-“
”Yes,” Evelyn hissed
”It’s me, I’m sorry about that. I was napping, she got to the phone first.”
”I have a problem,” Evelyn snapped. “Are you the cause?”
”Never. For you, never. Can I help?”
”No.”
A long, long pause.
”Goodbye, Felicity.”
”Be safe, Evee.” A small choke entered Felicity’s voice. “Can I see you-“
Evelyn killed the call with a jab.”
So yeah. Not an option either.
The pressure continues to mount over the days. Tenny starts regaining her trust in Heather, but so too does the Brotherhood of the New Sun finish licking its wounds and renewing its shenanigans. Even moving as a group whenever possible, the girls can't always be in each other's company and still be part of society, and two out of three of them would rather keep working on their degrees if possible. I still feel like Heather should put that on hold for a year to focus on Maisie, and I'm still not sure when Raine even has time for classes in the first place, but lol ok. As Heather goes to classes, she starts noticing creepy little goat statuettes appearing on shelves and table-tops after her, sometimes accompanied by scrap of paper with weird glyphs and eyelike sigils on them. Heather brings some back to Evelyn for analysis, and they don't appear to be magical, but even if Alexander and Co are just doing petty harassment with these things it shows that they've still got a bead.
...also, while reviewing the text for instances of "goat statuette," a very similar looking statue was apparently sitting in the Medieval Metaphysics office back in arc 1. And it was also explicitly noted to have disappeared by the next time Heather went in there.
Huhhhhhh.
Well. I think Evelyn's security was never as good as she thought, but that's hardly a surprise lol.
Anyway. A potential tide-turner comes in the form of a reappearance by Twil. But there's so much to talk about there that I think I'd better split it here. Guess Katalepsis III will be a five-part review!
