Halloween I.F. – “Going Dark” – Day 24

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The most important thing was eating something, Fern decided reluctantly. That and water. Who knew how different their evening would look once they actually had some fuel in the tank? And between the drink and hangover and sobbing… no wonder they felt miserable.

They drew a deep breath, popped into the bathroom to splash their face again—looking at themself in the mirror, at their bloodshot eyes with the dark circles, sallow skin, hair that was beginning to tangle—and sighed. “I am so dashing. I will turn every head at the cotillion,” they muttered to themself, an exaggerated replacement for the old self-mockery. If they had to be strong about this, they’d be strong. They’d be so fucking normal right now.

Squaring their shoulders, Fern headed downstairs.

As he said he would be, Bannick was seated in the living room. He had apparently lit a fire and was gazing into the fireplace—or seemed to be looking into those flames, at any rate. Between the veil and what Fern had to assume, based on their dream, was a total lack of facial features, there was no way of telling where he was actually looking. Bannick could well be asleep in that chair for all Fern knew.

He turned his head very slightly as Fern passed, though, so probably not. Fern waved, aiming for casual. “I am desperate to eat and drink,” they said. “Do you want to join me for some supper in a little bit?”

“…Sure, I’ll sit with you, at least,” Bannick said, cautiously. “Can I help?”

“Maybe. Do you know how to cook?”

“I’ve done it plenty. Aris is better at cleaning up, though.”

Aris—shit, that’s right. Aris should also probably be warned that Miranda was out now and on the war path. Determinedly, Fern shook up another bottle of Gatorade water and got some water on for tea. They opened the peanut butter container, too, digging a spoon in. They needed food now and the rest could wait. “Sure. I’d love that. Can you make something that’s high protein but that maybe Aris would still eat?”

“Aris? Why?” Bannick seemed taken aback.

“I’m not going to invite you to dinner and not them. That’d be rude of me,” Fern said. They stuck the peanut butter spoon in their mouth, rendering them incapable of speech for the time, and checked their phone.

Fully charged, thankfully, not that it was super useful at the moment. Bannick was examining the state of the fridge and cupboard. He looked bizarre like this, in Fern’s pj shorts, gangly and long and strange, like he should be creeping around corners or unfurling from cupboards instead of lifting out packaged items and making disapproving noises at the groceries Fern had brought. 

“Don’t be fooled into thinking that because Aris is a nature spirit, they only eat vegetables and sup on the morning dew,” Bannick was saying. “Nature has a bloody tooth. They’ll eat most things that you would, so long as it’s unsalted.”

Come to think of it, Aris had asked Fern to turn the salt out of their pockets earlier. Fern swallowed the mouthful of peanut butter and washed it down with some Gatorade. “You said you can listen through my phone?”

“Sure. It’s communications. Your phone’s listening to you basically all the time these days, so I can too,” Bannick said. He seemed pleased by discovering the steak that Fern had put in the fridge earlier. The steak was a two pack; Fern had planned on leftovers, but might as well share it. 

“Could you hear what we were talking about when I was in with Aris?” Fern began to lick the spoon clean.

“That I couldn’t,” Bannick said, turning, his voice odd for a moment. “That was Aris’s personal space. Both they and I carved out a little part of ourselves to stay in after we were trapped. An echo or a memory of where we should be. If Aris is trying to reach out, and I am too, we could touch in the radio, in a sense. But I can’t dip my fingers into their space to spy.”

That was interesting data at least. They flipped the now-empty spoon into the sink. “Okay. I’ll be back shortly.”

“You can use mine, if you want,” Bannick offered.

Fern paused halfway out the room. “Sorry?”

“Well, you don’t have to,” Bannick said quickly. “But you’ll need to sleep sometime. At least then you’d know only I could reach you.”

So mine was that personal space he’d mentioned. It was hard to say if Fern’s instinctive discomfort with the idea was due to their recent fear of Bannick, their knowledge that Bannick was the one they didn’t have any protection from, or simply the idea of going into some kind of prison mirror world that Bannick had protested about before. But it wasn’t necessarily a terrible idea.

“Do you think it’s safe for me to sleep tonight?” Fern said slowly.

“I mean, I think on a basic level everything’s going to get harder and harder for you if you don’t,” Bannick said lightly. “You humans need a certain amount of it and you’ve been spending your own energy recently like you just won the lottery. But if you want to stay awake, I won’t stop you. Ah, if you mean in general…”

“Yeah, in general, do you think I’ll get eaten in my sleep if I tried to sleep,” Fern said dryly.

That earned them a snorted laugh. “Maybe not. I don’t think that man’s got enough hooks in you to just kill you outright, not quite yet. Maybe tomorrow. So… hm. Sure, you could probably do that. You might consider warding yourself against me and Aris, but other than that…”

Fern hesitated. “What about warding myself against… him?”

“I don’t know how to do that, and neither does Aris, or surely we’d both have had an easier time of it,” Bannick said. “If it’s anywhere, that information would be in his journals as well.”

“I’ll try to figure out what’s best,” Fern said. “I’ll be right back. Can you watch the iron spike for me?”

“Oh, sure,” Bannick said. “It doesn’t do anything to me. Better than letting it out of sight, that’s for sure.”

This was half a test as anything else. Fern put it down on the counter, and headed outside.

The tree was, obviously, where Fern had left it. With the spike gone, Fern could feel a strange sort of pressure from it, like it took up too much space, or maybe too little. “Aris,” they called. “Can we speak?”

A shadowed head and neck emerged from the tree. “Oh, we can! How are you feeling on this fine autumn eve?”

“…Fine,” Fern said, again reminded that they hadn’t been warned about the hangover, at least. “I released Miranda. She’s hunting for Madoc now.”

A sharp sound, something related to a laugh only distantly and probably the wrong side of the blanket. “I heard. It would have been hard to miss. I wish her luck of it and yet I fear what she might do.”

Fern didn’t think they could manage to explain their reasons again. They changed the subject instead, since Aris didn’t seem surprised either way. “Bannick is making dinner. We were wondering if you’d like to join us.”

“You, plural, were wondering,” Aris repeated, that strange lilt abruptly falling from their voice.

Fern shrugged. “I was, and Bannick didn’t protest,” they said. “There will be meat. Not sure what else is going to be there, but if that sounds amenable, you’re welcome to it.”

“…Then I’ll accept.”

“Cool,” Fern said, and stepped back.

Finally, Aris moved away from the tree. They somehow both looked the same as their regal self that Fern had seen inside the tree, but also different. They were small in both cases, but where they’d glided inside, they crept here, and darted, and slid through the air like they were moving from shadow to shadow. There was no gemstone gleam to anything, but a darkness that clung to them, making tattered clothing where once Aris had been wearing diaphanous robes.

It would be rude to comment on it, so Fern didn’t, just leading them inside. The spike was where they’d left it in the kitchen. Aris didn’t look at it.

“Food’s about done,” Bannick said. “I fried up the steaks. Didn’t have time to marinate, but I made a chimichurri sauce. Uncanned some chickpeas and beans you had here to make a bean salad under it. Bone apple teeth.”

“That’s hardly the term, and I know that you know it,” Aris sighed, flowing into a seat, crouching there with glittering eyes.

“I regret not having a real bone apple for your highness,” Bannick said, putting a plate in front of Aris, then Fern. He followed up by handing out beverages—not beer, this time, but a chamomile tea with the water that Fern had boiled.

Fern mostly stayed quiet, eating slowly and watching the two of them banter. They had an odd energy, but it was different again with them together than it was with either of them talking about the other when apart. More like the original talk on that radio, like they were catching up.

“Actually surprised you came.”

“I was politely invited; why would I not come?”

“To eat food served by a beast such as myself?”

“O, and do I not usually get food from beasts, Bannick?”

“You got me there, Aris. Tell me, is it to your taste?”

“A rare meat, served red and waiting for the knife? Yes, despite my desire to find fault, you’ve served my desires flawlessly.”

It all seemed to not particularly mean anything except to exchange words when they usually couldn’t. Like they were taking pleasure in the flow of conversation itself in person. Fern was reminded of a pair of Shakespearean fools.

Fern could get used to this. It felt like a nice thought. A foolish one, but nice. Maybe it would be possible, they mused. They needed to find Madoc’s journals anyway, to find out if there was something in his notes they could use. Not that Fern wanted to be binding or controlling any spirits… but maybe the notes would teach them of other ways, things they could do to help these two stay around willingly. Better offerings, or whatever.

Maybe it could teach them other things, too. Ways to right wrongs…

Fern realized abruptly they’d finished their entire meal. It had been delicious; Bannick was surprisingly good as a cook. They hadn’t watched the others eat, and had no idea how Bannick, at least, had disappeared his food, but the other two plates were empty as well.

“I will clean,” Aris said, taking the plates and sweeping them away, scuttling oddly toward the kitchen.

“Has to be balanced,” Bannick remarked to Fern under his breath. He jerked his head toward the living room. “C’mere.”

Fern followed him out. “What is it?”

“Have you thought more about it? What you plan to do now?”

Sure, but it wasn’t like Fern had come to any conclusions. They felt like they’d got a second wind, like the conversation—and probably the food—had re-energized them, but they knew themself well enough to know that there was no telling how long that would last, and the crash after it would be very real. 

So. They could sleep in their room. If so, should they ward themself, and against whom? Warding themself against Aris would prevent Aris from helping them if needed, but also prevent Aris from harming them if ordered. And they currently only knew how to ward against Aris, not Bannick, though Bannick had mentioned Aris could probably provide a ward against Bannick… or the journals could. There was no way that Fern had heard of to ward against Miranda or against Madoc. They could also sleep unwarded; they did feel like they had an alliance with both now. Maybe even a bond.

They could instead ignore the warding entirely and go into Bannick’s theoretically horrible mirror realm to sleep there, if they felt being fully under Bannick’s care was a good idea here.

Or they could risk going into the cellars to find those journals to see if there was information they could use to protect themself. The journals might even have information on more general wards, or things that could be used against Madoc. The risk was …what if the crash came while they were still down there? They might make some foolish mistakes. Of course, they could ask Bannick or Aris to come with them, though they weren’t sure if that too had its own risks, and again, that would involve being unwarded…

They were twisting themself in knots over something as simple as sleeping.

[Comment below with a suggestion for Fern]

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