Chapter 20
Maru drunkenly bangs on the door as the frigid night nips at her ears.
“I know you’re in there!” She yells hoarsely, kicking at the door. “What the hell was that earlier?”
She hadn’t realized she wasn’t expecting anyone to answer until the door abruptly swings open and the force of her own kick causes her to fall right through it.
“Yes, child?”
Maru, sobered by the sudden reality of falling on her face in front of a seven foot tall wizard, stands up awkwardly. She tries to cling onto her anger but it’s fuzzy in her intoxicated mind.
“I want... to know... what the hell was that... earlier today... what the hell was that earlier today? I know you did it.” Her voice is slurred and her vision is more wobbly than she’d realized it was when she’d left the saloon.
“Yes.”
“That does not answer my question.” She says exasperated.
“Foolish is the one who goes wandering towards the thing they believed to have cursed them.” His tone of voice gives away nothing but there is a sparkle in his eye that says he’s amused by the situation. This reignites Maru’s anger some.
“Well, evidently it doesn’t matter if I’m near you for you to control me.”
“Yes, yes.” The wizard waves his hand dismissively, closing the door behind her and barring her inside. “Boring logic that you love. But you are not feeling logical tonight, not underneath it all, hmm?” He bends his head down and peers into her eyes.
Maru is too startled to reply.
“I know what is in your heart of hearts.” He says, poking her in the chest with a long purple fingernail. Though there is no real force behind it she finds herself tipping backwards and has to work to steady herself.
“Why... Just, why did you do it?”
“Who knows why one does anything?”
“Stop gaslighting me you old fuck!” She yells, again losing her balance as she points an accusatory finger at him. The wizard steadies her with the palm of his hand, tips back his head and laughs.
“Ho ho! There is a spark in you. Your summoning told you everything you need to know in the act itself. You heard it all. Now it is not my job to decipher it for you. You ought to calm yourself, I see a wicked headache for you in the morning, only to get worse the longer you linger here.”
She wasn’t convinced about the wizards predictive powers; the headache was well underway already.
“Look... Look...” She was deeply regretting her decision to do this after so many drinks. She had reason to be furious with him! If only she could access the words to explain why... “you can’t just, like, control people! Um, that sucks! You can’t just drag them across a forest, like... im, immobile. Yes.”
“The universe does this to us every day.” He says this with more ferocity, beginning to get impatient with her.
Trying to find words to respond her mouth opens and closes like a fish.
The wizard doesn’t like that.
He lifts her up by her coat so that her eyes are level with him, Maru’s feet dangling more than a foot off the ground. He stares into her eyes with piercing intensity. He takes his time searching her expression, her soul. Maru is too afraid to speak.
Eventually he says, “the pit you sulk in served you for awhile, but one should recognize when it does no longer.”
He throws her backwards. With a thud, she lands in her bed.
Alex was pouty when he got up in the morning. “I might freeze to death if you leave,” he says in his morning voice.
“I’ll put more wood on the fire.”
Alex makes a sound of discontent but he’s already asleep again before Shane can answer. He smiles, slipping on his boots and his coat. As much as he would love to stay cozy in bed he can’t leave the animals.
It’s still dark, and so cold out the air almost hurts his lungs. He winces when it reminds him of Alex plunging into the water after Pam. She’d been so out of it she’d fallen head first at the first tug on her fishing line, sinking like a rock. Alex had jumped after her before anyone else had even really processed what was going on. It had taken Shane’s lagging brain a moment to realize that Alex was no longer standing safely beside him, but handing Pam to Ry to pull out of the ice. How did he, Shane, end up with the town hero? He didn’t known if he was more proud of Alex, or scared of what might happen next.
He’s startled when he opens the door to the coop and finds someone else in there. Though not as startled as Ry, who jumps visibly and hits her head off the low ceiling.
“Ow, fuck.” She mutters, clutching at her head and moving towards the door.
“What are you doing in here?” He asks, skeptical, as he holds the door open.
“Checking on my chickens.”
Shane crosses his arms, “right. Because that hasn’t been exclusively my job for the past two years.”
“Fine, I’m checking on you.” She mutters. She steps out of the coop, pushing her hands deep into her pockets.
“What’s going on?” He asks, wondering if this is a continuation of her moodiness from the past week.
“Nothing.” She huffs, confirming that she must be.
“You’ve been acting fucking weird for the last few days. Since winter began, actually.”
She casts a furtive glance back at the house. “I’m not being weird.”
He just looks at her. She scowls at him but it slowly fades.
She inhales slowly, looking back at the house for a long moment. “Haley’s over.”
A wave of disbelief flows over him. Whatever he had been expecting to be going on that certainly wasn’t it. “Like... she just showed up? This early?”
Ry scowls at him again and he begins to register where he’d went wrong in his assumption, what he hadn’t let himself believe.
“Oh, yoba, what the fuck?” Haley? Haley and Ry? When had that happened? He can’t contain his surprise.
“Gee, thanks.”
“I’ve just... You’ve just never... this is new.” He finishes dumbly.
“More like the old me...” she mumbles more to herself, dragging a hand over her face.
“So what are you doing hiding out here? Was it that bad?” He can’t keep the tiny bit of mirth he feels out of his tone. Haley hasn’t been anything but suspicious and cold with him, he can’t help but to not like her, even with Alex’s influence.
“No. No. Not bad, I just don’t remember how this part is supposed to go.” She has a deep look of concentration on her face, like she’s really trying hard to grasp something eluding her. Shane would be laughing if it wasn’t so early in the morning.
“What, you don’t know how to kick her out?” He yawns and grins at the same time.
“Am I supposed to kick her out?” Ry asks, exasperated.
“Is that what you want?” He chuckles.
“I don’t fucking know, man.”
“Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so confused.”
“Whatever. You’re not helping.” She turns to head back towards the house.
“Just don’t fuck with my chickens.”
She huffs, and disappears towards the farm house.
Haley’s alone when she wakes up. It’s still dark in the winter morning. It takes her awhile to realize where she is. The smell of burning pine in the air is unfamiliar, as is the crackling sound of fire. She’s naked and warm in a firm bed. She stretches and sits up, a scratching thirst from having drank too much the night before in her throat.
She pads over to the kitchen, still naked. She notices the wood stove has recently been restocked and the temperature in the house is rising. Ry must have only recently gotten up. Is she the type to disappear on her? Is that even possible in this town? Haley supposes that the farmer could easily find the excuse of being consumed in work.
She briefly startles when she hears the front door open. She turns to see Ry enter, who pauses when she sees Haley’s fully naked form in her kitchen. “Um,” swallow, “I just had to check on something for the farm.”
“Of course. I hope you don’t mind I helped myself to your tap water.” Haley smirks as she lifts the cup of water to her lips and takes a long drink, doing nothing to cover up her nakedness. It wasn’t what she planned, the seduction act, but when the opportunity arose it was just too much fun to pass up.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“Hmm, I don’t know, can you?”
Ry’s boots and coat are off and she slowly makes her way towards Haley.
When the distance is almost closed, she hesitates, observing Haley closely, waiting for a sign to continue. She still has the glass of water held up to her lips and she smiles over it. She can feel the tension tingling around her, catching on the breath in her throat, almost making her want to hesitate too.
She begins to lower the glass and Ry takes it from her hand and brings it to her own lips, not breaking eye contact with Haley. She takes a long drink, and then reaches around Haley to put the glass back on the counter. She leaves her hand there, locking Haley in place.
“Hm,” Ry lowers her eyes and she tastes the water off her own lips, taking in Haley’s naked form. Her breathing is getting heavier and she can feel the desire for touch taking over.
Ry brings a hand to her waist and Haley tilts her head back, arching her back in a way that forces the distance between them to close. Next thing, Ry’s lips are on her neck.
Maru woke up with a black hole in her stomach, threatening to suck her in. What was the cause? She asked herself this as she stared at the ceiling of her bedroom; magic. It was magic. What the fuck was magic?
Without thinking she hurtles herself out of bed and begins digging through her pile of laundry until she gets her hands on her slime covered clothing from yesterday. She holds it up to the morning light – the slime is still there but it’s... different. It seems dried out similarly to how an old egg yolk might dry out. Interesting, she thinks. And without really noticing what she’s doing, she finds herself in her dad’s lab, pulling out the microscope.
The sex is as good as it was the night before and afterwards Ry brings her breakfast in bed. There’s no ceremony to it, it feels almost off-hand.
“You don’t look pleased.” Ry comments as she pulls a hoodie over her head. The fire in the wood burning oven has gone low and the place was beginning to become chillier. It was hard for Haley to imagine why someone would choose this method of heating when there were so many other, more consistent, more convenient, options.
“Hmm?” Haley only glances up from her phone.“It’s work.” She’s still naked. Languishing in the day.
“Thought you were supposed to be on vacation.” Ry asks, eyebrow raised.
“The concept of boundaries doesn’t really exist when you work in social media.” Haley sighs, tossing her phone down.
“Can you ignore them?”
“Can you ignore your farm?”
Ry chuckles, “I don’t know if it’s the same.”
“Why is it not the same?”
She hesitates, this half-amused smile crossing her face like she’s not sure if she should continue, like she has access to thoughts Haley’s not ready for. The superiority of it twists something inside her, she has to work not to clench her teeth.
“You insinuating your work is more important than mine?” She tries her best to keep the bite out of her words.
“No. It’s just not physical, so I don’t really get why the time-pressure thing needs to be so high.”
“Ah.” Haley swings off the bed and begins searching for her clothes.
She shrugs, “I didn’t mean to sound insensitive. Manufactured urgency is the reason I left the city, is all. Or one of many reasons.” She throws a log on the fire.
“I can’t picture you there.” She says as she pulls on her underwear.
“Too hick?”
Haley rolls her eyes, “please, your type of hick is fashionable these days.”
“Is it?”
“Sure. Anyway, I better go.”
When she’s at the door Ry looks almost sheepish. She’s about to say something but shakes her head, settling for “I’ll see you around.”
Haley doesn’t push it, doesn’t want to hear anything more.
“Right. Maybe I’ll let you fuck me again.”
Ry laughs in surprise and Haley wonders if she will. It had been good. It had gotten her mind off things. But now they were back.
Staring down the path back to town Haley feels dread pooling in her stomach. Was she up for this walk of shame? The only person she’d ever had sex with in this town was Alex, and that had been... teenage experimentation, ten years ago, happened to two people who didn’t exist anymore. Back then she could walk through this town and stare down at everyone around her. Now... now she wasn’t so sure they weren’t looking down on her.
Almost without thinking she turns and heads down the path through the farm, the way that skirts around Marnie’s ranch. She was aware it was a dumb decision almost immediately, considering her footwear and the fact she’d only ever gone this way during wildflower season, but her shame kept her walking.
Surprisingly she makes it out of the farm land just fine. Ry’s care for it had obviously paid off in terms of being able to manoeuvre through it.
It wasn’t until she reached Marine's that something went wrong. She didn’t see, the snow was too thick. Suddenly there was a soft crack and her foot submerged half a foot beneath the snow. A gopher hole? She’d forgotten that you needed to look out for those.
“Fuck.” She mumbled to herself, trying to pull her foot up, but it wouldn’t budge. She tries to move again and nothing happens. The panic begins to rise.
What can she do?
Back in the day she would have called Alex immediately, before even attempting to get herself out. Because he would have come without question. And he still would, but...
She yanks again; nothing changes.
The way she’s stuck she can’t even reach the zipper of her boot to get her foot out that way. She pulls her weight even harder. This time something shifts and causes her to fall backwards. She yelps in surprise as she falls into the snow, her foot very much still stuck.
“Ughhh!” She groans out loud.
Could she call Ry?
No. She didn’t have her number.
“Haley?” She hears a crisp clear voice floating towards her over the snow. Gazing up she sees Leah stepping out of the woods with a few gnarly looking fallen branches in her arms. “Are you stuck?”
“I’m fine!” She says hastily, awkwardly trying to stand up again.
“Here,” Leah drops the branches and is by Haley’s side in a moment.
“No, I’m fine. I’ve got it.” Haley says, struggling to steady herself and wobbling in the exact way that communicates she does not have it.
Leah just raises an eyebrow at her and wraps a steadying arm tightly around her waist. Haley looks the other way. “Tilt your weight towards me.” Leah commands and, begrudgingly, without saying anything, Haley submits to the help.
Leah is much stronger than she looks and lifts Haley’s weight in such a way that she can feel her shoe escaping from its prison.
“There. All free.” Leah says, releasing Haley.
Placing her foot back down on the ground she involuntarily winces.
“You need to go see Harvey?”
“No.” Haley snaps, the reaction coming straight out of her gut. The force of it piercing through the air and forcing her to realize herself. She shakes her head, pushing hair out of her face, embarrassment not letting her make eye contact. “I...” Just say sorry, “hah, I...” She looks at the ground, “thank you for getting me out.”
“Of course.”
Was she being smug? Haley couldn’t tell.
Leah picks up her gnarly branches and turns back to Haley, waiting to see if she can walk okay. She’s at least grateful she’s not trying to help her anymore.
“What are those for?” She asks, trying to change the topic.
“Oh, just another heap of ugly debris.”
There’s no foulness in Leah’s tone but Haley feels herself going pink at her own words being thrown back at her.
Years ago, at Leah’s first art show in the valley, Haley had made many impolite remarks in a not so hushed voice to Alex. She’d figured Leah had heard, and at the time that had been what she’d wanted... She’d forgotten about it, but hearing Leah utter her own insult, realizing that she’d held onto it, even if it was out of humour as it sounded now...
“I’m sure... I’m sure that’s not that case.” She says weakly.
Leah just smiles slightly, giving nothing away.
“Thank you for helping, I better go.” And she hurries off as quickly as she can.
She has the impression that whenever she looks away from the microscope the slime changes, and when she looks again, it resumes its false mimicry.
There’s nothing interesting about it, that she can see. It’s basically the same as an algae. But it doesn’t look like algae to her bare eye.
She keeps trying to catch it in the act of reformulating. If it’s a magical being, could it deceive her instruments? There was very little discussion of magical properties in her studies back at the university, she did not know what to think.
“Maru! You’re in the lab!” Her father exclaims from behind her, unable to keep the happiness out of his voice.
“Can you take a look at this?” She asks, before he can say anything else. And because she needs a second opinion.
“Sure!”
“Looks like a basic photosynthetic eukaryotic organism to me.”
She frowns, “yeah, I thought so too.” She pauses a moment before asking “have you ever dealt with anything... beyond science?”
In the background he can hear the front door open and open exclaiming “Sebby! Were you out all night?”
“I was at Abbi’s.” She hears him say.
Her father’s mouth has fallen into a straight line, “there’s nothing beyond science.”
“Known science. Like, have you ever looked at something and felt there was no explanation for it?”
“There’s always an explanation.”
“Okay, obviously, but... one that makes sense. Have you ever seen something that’s beyond our... current understanding? Like you’re looking at something we’re not ready to understand, and therefore can’t really see it?”
She can feel Sebastian lingering at the top of the steps to the basement, listening to their conversation.
Her dad is now frowning, “there are many phenomena we do not understand yet, but as for seen... with my bare eye? No.”
“Hm,” she sighs and looks into the microscope again, hoping he will leave her to her fruitless observations.
“Alright... glad you’re... back in the lab.” She doesn’t look back at him as he leaves. She knows he’s probably feeling a mix of gladness that she’s back in the lab and concerned because he can’t make out her exact reasoning like she used to share so thoroughly in the past.
She can feel Seb’s eyes on her from the hallway but she doesn’t turn. She isn’t ready to talk about what happened, not until she can understand it better herself.
When Haley gets home she goes through her entire routine.
She bathes, she exfoliates, she removes every hair from her body. She does a hair and face mask, she touches up her nails. She whitens her teeth. She spends over an hour on her facial skincare. She moisturizes every bit of herself.
Before she gets dressed or does her makeup she stares at herself naked in the mirror. She tries to conjure the same sense of pride she used to feel after having spent hours doing all this.
This is for her. This is for her.
She runs her hands over her face. Only in her mid-twenties she’d already had several expensive injections to keep her looking youthful. Those didn’t stop her first grey hair from showing up recently.
Her fingers find the mark that Ry had left on her collarbone and rest there.
She does not ask herself where her worth lies, looks away from the mirror, gets dressed, and opens up her laptop. She has work to do.
When Emily gets back from the saloon well into the early hours of the morning she is sitting at the kitchen table, still working.
“You’re up late!”
“They needed me at work.”
“Can’t they ever give you a break?”
“You worked this late.” Haley points out.
Emily just shakes her head, “and I’m dead tired! See you in the morning... later in the morning. Try to get some rest too.” She gives Haley’s shoulder a squeeze before disappearing into her room for the night.
Haley continues attempting to work until her vision is swimming and she must finally concede.
She had been dreading this part. She had hoped working late enough would completely drain her, leave her to fall immediately into sleep.
Instead she stares up at the ceiling, a restless exhaustion coming over her. She squeezes her eyes shut. Not another night like this.
But it’s happening anyway. The first sob wracks her body and she knows she won’t be able to hold back now.