1.6

 

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“Jesus, Pandora!”

I got up and off my bed before the sentence was finished and pulled open my door. Stood in the hallway and looked towards the bathroom where my dad was coming out.

“The bathroom floor is soaked because you didn’t close the shower curtain properly again.” He said. His feet looked a bit wet. Some of that water was soaking into the hall carpet now.

“I thought I did.” I knew I did. But this stupid fucking shower required constant supervision to work right and it’s hard to do everything in the shower and pay attention to it when I didn’t even really want to shower in the first place. But of course that didn’t matter, because-

“You didn’t, and now there’s water all over the floor, which you decided to just leave for me.” My brain was stuck on what I wanted to say. My automatic response was an apology since I was ten, but now I apologize too much for things that don’t need apologizing for and get reprimanded for that as well. So next I wanted to say I forgot but that wasn’t really true, because I didn’t even realize it was there. But I didn’t want to explain that, because saying, “I dragged myself into the shower because I knew people would notice if I wasn’t clean and not because I had any desire to, and my brain was so focused on getting that done so I could go back into my room that I didn’t have the brain power to notice the puddle,” would just get me told that I was overdramatic. That I needed to get my head out of the clouds. Or whatever. And it was also long and I didn’t want to extend this conversation anymore than I had to.

“I didn’t realize it was there.” I said. I was looking at his knees or his feet this whole time.

“You’re almost a year away from possibly being on your own and you’re still leaving a mess for me to clean up. You need to get on the ball.”

And then I stood there for another two or three or four or whatever minutes because I also wasn’t on the ball with my other chores. Or my homework. But at least it was short. It didn’t turn into a lecture about how much time I spend in my room not doing anything useful or how I need to do something productive like exercise. Today I was only bad at chores and school.

And then we were done and I went into the bathroom and looked around for a towel. The only one we had was the small one for drying hands, hung beside the sink. That wouldn’t pick up enough water. And maybe I’d forget to replace it and get told about that. Or I’d get told how disgusting it is to use a hand towel to wipe the floor with. I grabbed my own towel instead. Slightly damp from my shower that caused this whole thing but it worked. I thought about how hanging it over the shower rod to dry could be a bad thing, and then actually did it when I couldn’t come up with a reason.

The curtains in my room were a bit askew and letting a little sunlight in. I tried my best to fix it and just gave up and fell on to my bed and curled up a little. Door closed, room mostly dark, no one else here. I could breath a bit.

It was four in the afternoon, according to my phone. An hour since school ended, maybe forty or forty-five minutes since I’d got home. My dad had been here maybe two minutes before finding something to call me out of my room for. He’d still been in his work clothes.

Me and Ellie are here, would you like to join us

Fuck. I’d meant to do some homework. I’d laid down and listened to music to decompress from school and then looked over and couldn’t bring myself to get up. And then the water puddle and this text. I didn’t even really entertain the thought of saying I needed more time. Still couldn’t bring myself to care about doing the work.

                Be there in ten

I left the black tank top and jeans on that I hadn’t even bothered to get out of after school. Again. Didn’t care. All I pulled on was a new pair of socks that I grabbed from my drawer, because the ones I wore today were somewhere uncertain after I threw them off.

“Did you have homework?” I was asked as I very quietly came down the stairs and began to slip my canvas shoes on.

“No.” I said. Only kind of partially a lie. We had exams in a week so the workload was slowing down a bit. He paused at that answer. I stood up and looked into the living room, both shoes now on.

“Okay. Will you be around for dinner?” He asked. My hand was already on the door handle.

“Don’t know.” I said. And then I closed the door behind me and began to walk. Once I was far enough away I slowed to put my earbuds in. Took a deep breath and started off again.

The rain had helped the heat. It was cool enough that my bare arms sufficed to keep the heat away. That meant I wasn’t constantly thinking about how terrible it was to be walking for an extended period of time. Instead, I got to think about the pool, a couple nights ago.

Ellie could have died. I’d repeated that at least once an hour since it happened. I would sit in class with my head on the desk and stare passed the teacher and think that my friend had come closer than any of us in our entire lives to dying. No longer existing in a metaphysical sense or whatever. Shannon had been fucking freaked afterwards. We’d gotten out of the school and collapsed under a tree after running for five minutes straight and she’d grabbed Ellie’s wrist and checked on it as best she could in the dark and with zero medical training. Asked her if she was breathing okay. Ellie had been quiet. But in a different way than usual. A lot more spacey and involving more zoning out and staring.

I hadn’t felt any different.

I repeated it again. Ellie almost died. It made my stomach jump a bit. But my face didn’t change. I kept walking at my normal pace. My heart didn’t thump any faster or any louder. Fuck, what was going on with me.

That night I’d been able to be the calming presence. I thought maybe in the moment I was keeping a level-head and being a rock for my friends maybe. Shannon was playing off it and it seemed to suck some of the panic out of her voice and her mom instincts kicked in. We’d walked Ellie home and hugged and then I dropped Shanon off and then I went home. My dad was up. I got told that he’d texted me because I was out later than I usually was and then told that I needed to pay more attention to that and more shit I couldn’t remember because I was so zoned out at that point. Then I’d fallen asleep almost instantly.

All day yesterday I’d still felt nothing, so it wasn’t me staying composed in the moment. I hadn’t put on a mask or whatever and then gone home and cried and let it out. At lunch we’d talked about it and planned to go to the clearing that night to touch base with Lady. I’d paid as much attention in my classes as I usually did. I didn’t go to my last period, but that wasn’t because of what happened at the pool. I just didn’t want to go. I could feel school closing in on me like it usually did so I just left to walk around town.

And now we were meeting up again, for practice and for planning. Last night had been all the former. We hadn’t wanted to talk about it yet. Lady had been fine with it. But today I’d pushed to start forming some ideas for how to get this thing. And Ellie and Shannon had agreed, tentatively. Shannon had emphasized going in with every detail covered. I had agreed to that as well, also tentatively. Not a lot of plans survived the first step, but if it made her feel better.

“How are you three?” Lady asked. None of us said anything as we walked into the clearing. We dropped our bags in silence. Shannon stared down at her backpack and very slowly breathed in. Then breathed out. Ellie was rubbing her wrist and looking between us.

“Okay. I think.” I said. Lady seemed worried at that.

“We need a plan.” Shannon said. She was looking up at us now. Her arms were crossed and her nails were digging into her palms. Aside from that single action she was standing straight now. Looking on top of things.

“You have any info for us?” I asked Lady. She tilted her head as the other two looked towards her as well. Was thinking, it looked like.

“Not much, no. I’m unable to peer into branches in any meaningful way, so the only solution to this would be scouting out the realm beforehand.”

“We kind of screwed that up. Whatever’s in there is probably on the lookout now.” Ellie said. She frowned.

“I don’t think it would have mattered, it seemed like it reacted as soon as we opened the door or whatever.” Shannon added. Lady nodded slowly at that.

“I agree. The entity inside the branch seems to be hyper-aware of the goings-on in it’s realm.” Lady paused for a moment. Tilted her head to the side.

“To somewhat answer your previous question, I can tell you that it seems like this creature is associated with water. I don’t think the door to the branch residing in a pool is a coincidence.” Shannon pursed her lips and stared off into the space between Ellie and I. Tapped her toes slowly.

“You’ll be our star player, then.” She gestured towards me with her chin. Lightning and water. Made sense. There were a few flaws in that plan though.

“Don’t know about that. I could shock you guys to death depending on the watery-ness of the place.” Shannon pursed her lips again in a slightly different way. Frustration, I think.

“We can put a pin in that, I guess, keep it as a just-in-case.” None of us spoke for a while. I was thinking. Shannon probably was. Ellie was staring at her wrist still. Thinking of both a solution and last night, maybe. She’d been a bit spaced out during the classes we had together. And lunch. Shannon hadn’t been much better, although she seemed to just throw herself into whatever instead to get it over with. I’d seen her finish work in record time and spend the last half of class sitting and concentrating at a single spot on a wall.

And I hadn’t done any of that. Or none of the sullen quiet stuff at least. I wanted to go back in. I’d wanted to go back the next morning. Figuring out and brainstorming and defeating this thing felt like moving forward to me when everything else felt stagnant right now.

“When are we going back in?” I asked lowly, without looking anyone in the eye. I moved my eyes up after the fact to get a feel of what everyone was thinking.

Lady looked unmoved. Not angry or happy but just neutral. Shannon had looked at me for a moment and now was looking away and thinking again. Ellie was taking in a really big breath.

“I still think we should go in as soon as possible.” She said. Shannon looked at her as if she wanted a big, dramatic are you crazy? expression but had to tone it down a few notches because of how tired she was.

“You’ve looked fucking despondent these last couple days and that’s the first big thing you say?” Shannon asked. Ellie shrugged and frowned.

“Yeah. I guess. Yeah.” Shannon widened her eyes and shook her head at that.

“You guys rushed me through this and now we’ve royally fucked it up. If you hadn’t wanted to go as soon as possible I could have spent a night brainstorming something, and maybe we would have done something other than uselessly walk around the pool a few times.”

“You agreed to fucking go.” I said. An immediate fire back. I wasn’t really exasperated or anything but this is what it devolved into with Shannon. She was easy to argue with even if you didn’t mean to start.

“I know, but Ellie’s eagerness and your very easy agreement swept me up into the very grand idea of saving someone from the swim team.”

“Was that not important?” I asked.

“No, it’s very fucking important, it’s one of the two reasons I accepted this whole thing, but to bring back a point I mentioned a couple nights ago, if we fuck this up and die, there’s no one else to do it.” Ellie was starting to let her head drift down and pull out of the conversation. Not unusual.

“Okay honour student, then get to thinking.” Shannon pursed her lips very intently at that. Oops. That was an unintentional sore spot. I stayed silent after I said that. Kept my face blank. My cheeks flushed just a little bit and I hoped it wasn’t as noticeable as it felt. I didn’t have the porcelain complexion of my friends or really anybody else in this town, and this felt like one of the only upsides in this moment.

“Is there any outside help we could contact?” Shannon turned to Lady to ask this.

“No magi have been in contact with me, if that’s what you mean. I’m sure they’re around, especially with your proximity to a large city, but I don’t think they know we exist just yet.” She paused for a moment and seemed to consider something.

“I’ve contacted a mage through a specific channel, but he hasn’t got back to me yet. He’s relatively new but has a bit of power to his name. His specialty is knowledge more so, which is why I wanted him as an introduction to this world for you three, to give you details and explanations if needed.”

“Are there any other magical creatures we could bargain with around Atwood?” I asked. My thoughts immediately turned to bargaining with a Faerie for some glamour to turn ourselves invisible and sneak in. Or pose as moonbeams or whatever twee shit the Fae would do.

“Not from my wanderings around town. The surprisingly large amount of entities seems to be a ward for most other things.” Lady answered. Fuck. I wanted to meet a cool goblin. Or a friendly ghost.

“Back to point one.” I said a bit quietly. Sighed slightly.

“So we have no other resources on hand, nothing else you’ve neglected to teach us?” Shannon asked Lady. Lady shook her head. Her ears flicked back and forth.

“I have nothing else to give you except time to hone your craft.” She said. We all seemed to give one huge collective sigh. I was staring at the ground in front of Lady’s paws. Was waiting to see who was gonna say it, because I didn’t want to broach that question again.

“So, uh, when should we go in?” Ellie asked quietly. I looked up after she said that. Shannon had her arms crossed still and nothing seemed to have really changed but her stance was tighter and more wound up.

“Tonight or tomorrow at the latest.” She said. We both looked up. Shannon was really pushing the not-reckless thing this last week. I was impressed.

“I don’t want to fucking overthink this. I’ve already felt like I jumped into a course mid-semester and now have to take a huge, big-part-of-my-grade sort of test without being able to study first for about a week now. If I get more time to let this sit in my brain, I’m going to psych myself up and-“ She paused and breathed. “It won’t be good.”

Ellie nodded at that. I thought back to the week she had taken off school after that particular exam. I nodded as well.

“From now on we don’t do it like this anymore, I don’t care if we have to buy a whiteboard to set up in this clearing and start writing game plans to pass out like football teams do or whatever. This is the important part of this that I’m bringing to the table. So we’re gonna get through this fucking hopefully and then there’s no more procrastinating or denying or not brainstorming.” She looked at each of us very intensely as if to ask us if we got it. Ellie nodded again.

“Okay.” I said. And then I smiled just a bit. I was gonna go kill a monster with my friends. Jesus.

“Tonight or tomorrow?” Shannon asked. Her arms were still crossed. But she looked less stressed. She was in control now. Managing things to make sure nothing didn’t go her way.

“Tonight.” I responded immediately. Shannon looked at Ellie.

“Yeah. Tonight. I’m nervous, and I’m afraid that’ll convince me not to go if we wait.”

“Okay, an hour or so of practice here, and then we go home and eat, and get prepared. Then we meet at the school around seven.” Ellie and I nodded at that. We all transformed and unsheathed our weapons. Lady jumped up to the tree and watched as we began to practice.

Shannon and I went first. Her shield against my sword. After a few test hits, we clashed. While we were stuck together in the middle of the clearing I smiled at her. I didn’t know how crazy I looked, because it felt big and not necessarily voluntary. She pursed her lips and shook her head at me and we continued on.

 

When we all got together the sun was beginning to get a bit pink.  Were pretty silent for a few moments as we waited for Lady outside the school once again. Standing outside a building and waiting to break in to it without the cover of dark felt strange. Exposing. Like someone could come along and just know what we were planning and catch us without any proof. Or something like that.

“Anyone wanna back out?” Shannon asked lowly. As if the janitor inside was going to hear us talking from 0potentially across the school and through a bunch of walls.

“No.” I said. Ellie echoed that statement.

“Good, I would have kicked your shit in if either of you had said yes.” She crossed her arms after this. Her fingers were curled inward like claws. She was trying not to pay attention to her fingertips. If we weren’t here I think she’d be biting and pulling skin without even realizing it.

I felt something brush past my leg and looked down. Lady, coming from behind us. She walked between Shannon and I and stopped in front of our little group.

“Are you three ready?” She asked. We all nodded. We did the same thing we’d done last time. Ellie landed even smoother than last time. It almost looked like she floated on to the roof. Shannon ad I were okay. I’d never been an athletic person.

The door was still handle-less. Looked like they hadn’t even fixed it in secret. I’d assumed they’d just patched it up without saying anything when I hadn’t heard an announcement about it or any rumours spreading. I wondered how many people even came up here. I thought a couple staff members would sneak away for a smoke break at least.

We were quiet and fast as we made our way to the pool. Heads constantly turning and looking out for the janitor because we didn’t know when she went home. The heels of our boots sounded really fucking loud on the tiles. I wanted to run and get it over with but I knew that would make even more noise.

And then we were there. The pool was casting blue-tinted waves on the wall that made the room look like it was slowly shaking. We stayed together as we paced up to and around the pool. I was ready to grab someone again if they were pulled into the water. Maybe my hand strength wouldn’t suck as much this time.

“Okay.” I said. Took a bit of a breath. We’d agreed I was going to be the one to jump in and see if I could open the door. They’d stay up and out of the water. Out of the way. If I needed to, I’d shock the pool. The entity probably wouldn’t like that. And I probably wouldn’t roast myself alive with my own power. Maybe.

I stepped off the edge of the pool and into the water like I was walking downstairs. Just dropped feet first. I forced myself not to take a big gulp of air before my head fell below water. I wanted to be able to sink as fast as possible.

My skirt and sleeves danced up and around me in the water. I was glad neither of them were that long. I wouldn’t get tangled in them. I wasn’t the best swimmer. Shannon had a pool in her backyard, so I’d had practice. Not an inground one, but nice regardless. Her domain had been the floaties and pool noodles. I’d attempted to teach myself to swim. Ellie had surpassed me around early high school, when she’d joined the swim team.

But Ellie had also been the one who almost drowned or got dragged into another dimension last night so she wasn’t feeling to up to it. Which I guess was understandable. And Shannon had also jumped in despite her very apparent lack of ability so I guess it was my turn to get wet.

Swimming was always something fun and lazy I did in the summer to beat the heat. I liked having access to a pool through a friend and I liked being able to hang out in the water. Hated the school one, though. It was a part of classes and you just got told what to do and where to go when you were in it.

It felt odd, swimming with boots and clothes on. I’d never really done anything like it before. My costume was light thankfully, and the added strength I got from the transformation was basically canceling out whatever weird drag or resistance I was getting. I made it down to the bottom of the pool okay and pressed my6 hands against the drain.

Lady had said it would be like opening up the Woodsman’s branch. Or similar. Simple, but I’d have to figure it out. Most branches were opened like that, apparently. The ones that weren’t were just there. Leaking out constantly. She’d said it would be intuitive to open. To follow what felt right. Which hadn’t made sense to me in the moment, away from now. But with my chest beginning to cramp up and with the vague uncomfortable-ness of being underwater in clothes creeping up on me, I was kind of getting it.

I brought my other hand forward to touch the drain as well. Really gently. Like I was scared of waking an animal. Which I actually was. I was close enough that this thing would be able to drag me in before any of us really realized what was up.

It was kind of like meditating. I was letting stuff flow over my brain without really thinking about it and then when something felt right, hit the correct points in my head and lit up all the right lights, my hands just kind of went with it. My fingertips grazed the ring of metal as I began to repeatedly circle it. Like I was turning a wheel right above the drain.

I felt water rushing away from me even though I was still completely surrounded by the entirety of the pool and heard a sucking noise that seemed to be made especially unattractive and then I was on my knees in a couple inches of water and natural light was coming in from above me.

I wasn’t worried about having to go back and tell my friends or get them or whatever. Lady was watching especially closely, as she said she would. She’d pick up what I did and tell them what to do. So I stood up and waited in the water. It was deep enough that the toe of my boot was mostly engulfed.

I was in a stone hallway. The colours were beige and off-brown and then dark green where plant life crawled along the brickwork. A lot of it was damaged and fallen and full of holes. Most of the ceiling was collapsed here. Pale yellow light was lighting up the entire place. The floor was covered with an even layer of water and shined where what I think was sunbeams hit it. I looked up to see where they were coming from and only saw white. Like there just wasn’t anything there. A video game level with nothing modeled or textured around these ruins.

Shannon appeared next to me. No big splash or anything. The water rippled a bit as she displaced it. She looked very confused and stared at the sudden drop in water level for a moment or two and then stood and looked around.

“Fucking swimming.” She muttered. Whispered actually. Even that little bit of noise seemed out of place here. There was a weird stillness to everything and the ripples in the water from our small movements were making me nervous on a deep level.

Ellie appeared on the opposite side. Soaking wet like me and Shannon. She stood and shook her hands from where they’d landed in the water. Lady appeared right in front of her, paws making four sets of small ripples.

“Good work.” She spoke softly. She looked down at the water and then gave a quick glance to the wall.

“This would be how the entity is so well-formed of its domain. It might be using the water like a spider uses a web.” Shannon turned to her as she said this. Ellie’s eyes widened just a bit. I stared straight ahead, down the hallway. It branched off in a few different directions.

“It could know we’re here already?” Shannon asked.

“If it doesn’t, it will soon. I suggest we begin our search for it.” None of us argued with that. We began to walk. I was very fucking aware of each set of steps we took into the water. The ripples were a lot bigger now. I couldn’t tell if it was natural or not.

The place was a maze. That was already very clear from the first branching path. We all looked uneasy to make a choice but Lady told us she could very easily sense where the exit was. Like seeing something in your peripheral vision but inside your head instead. I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped we could trust that as we went left.

I liked the quiet. It’s why I went to the field near the convenience store and why I just don’t go to classes sometimes. Everything starts to feel like it’s too close, like someone’s constantly swaddling me in blankets and I get more and more uneasy and restless. So I just go away to somewhere that doesn’t have all these people and noises. But I hated the silence here as much as the noise of school. It was like the silence before a scare in a movie, perpetually extended. It reminded me of how I felt at home.

This path led to a stairway which we took up to another level. We were trying to keep our back to the entrance and use that as a way to keep moving forward. It felt right to me. Going deeper and trying to find where the boss would be.

But then we came to a two-way split. Completely left or completely right. We stood and stared at it silently for a moment. I couldn’t tell how much time had passed in here already. It felt like I’d fallen asleep in Lady’s pocket dimension and couldn’t get my bearings because there was no moving sun or darkening sky.

“I didn’t bring a coin. Sorry.” I said. Shannon let out a huff and released a bit of tension in her jaw at that. Ellie’s lip turned up in one corner a little but it didn’t reach her eyes. They still continued to dart between the two paths ahead.

“We each say a direction on three.” Shannon said. I nodded. Ellie nodded. She began to count.

“One.” Water rippled by my feet again. Lady adjusting. It was still unnerving. The stillness.

“Two.” Ellie took in a small breath. It seemed to cut off at a point, as if she wanted to take in something bigger but was maybe afraid of the noise.

“Three.” The small breaths we all took that were usually unnoticeable before someone spoke were way too loud in here. Hated it.

“Left.” I said.

“Left.” Shannon said.

“Right.” Ellie said. Except the last syllable of it was cut off by a yelp almost like a surprised dog.

I turned and saw my friends already down at the other end of the hall. Still moving back. Their feet were off the floor and their bodies were arched and bent at the middle. Almost like they were falling. Or like someone had grabbed at them all with a big cane to drag them back.

I stared and blinked and looked. It was even quieter now. Only my breath. Which was starting to ratchet up a bit. Get more intense. Oh fuck. Fuck.

I wanted to play the floor is lava. Get off the water. Because it knew now. It knew where we were and it had decided that I should be alone. Maybe at the sole single moment I absolutely did not want to be fucking alone.

I didn’t think about it. Turned around instead and looked at the path. If I looked back at my friends who were now around the last bend and completely out of sight I’d start crying. If I thought about it I’d realize I wasn’t keeping track of where we’d been going because I’d trusted Lady to do it for me. And I’d start crying. I wasn’t going to fucking cry. Didn’t solve anything.

I’d said left. Shannon had said left. Left had been the vote. So I went left.