Halloween I.F. – “Going Dark” – Epilogue

“Are you sure about this?” Adrian asked dubiously. “You can move back any time you want, you know, mom told me to make that absolutely clear.” He put the box down in the entryway. “I don’t know how well you’re going to do living alone long term.”

Fern nodded. “Yeah,” they said. They couldn’t explain it to Adrian. He wouldn’t understand. “I know. But the peace and quiet did me some good, and the public transit around here’s great. If things get bad, I’ll reach out. Don’t worry.”

“I do worry,” Adrian sighed, looking around the new place with a critical eye. 

Fern knew it didn’t look like much—they couldn’t appear to afford too much, after all. Their recent ‘found footage’ horror podcast had taken off, with supplemental and carefully edited videos from their phone, but there was no guarantee that the funds would keep coming, their parents had said. Still, with a sudden windfall, it was a perfect time to put a down payment on a starter house, especially in this economy. Fern knew their family probably expected to have to help out once in a while, so had kept the purchase very modest, the mortgage slightly less than rent would have been.

This was fine with Fern, especially after the cottage. This one was smaller, a cheap house out in the suburbs. It was a one-bedroom bungalow, but it had the most important features to Fern: Not sharing any walls with neighbours, so they could do their work at odd hours without drawing suspicion, and woods out back.

There was no way to tell Adrian that they would be rich for the rest of their life, not in a way he’d understand. Fern could still barely grasp it, frankly. Bannick had nothing to give, but Aris came from a world where wealth grew on trees, and insisted they owed Fern a debt of freedom. In a capitalist world, freedom meant the funds to do whatever you wanted as you wanted it without being bound to anyone else’s restrictions.

So Fern would wake up to golden branches laid across the foot of their bed, gems under their pillow. That would have been hard to explain to their family, so they simply didn’t. They sold them on ebay instead and began to rack up numbers in their bank account that it had simply never seen before. They didn’t have full plans for it yet—they were securing their own future, first—but they hoped they might be able to do some real good out there.

They kept writing, though, and working on their podcast. The work part was something they could phase out over time without drawing suspicion, but they figured they might stick with the podcast. It gave them plausible deniability and also the joy of a creative outlet when they were dealing with some seriously strange stuff after those two weeks.

Two weeks. They’d had that cottage for two weeks still after they’d woken up back in it, Bannick having carried them out. Two weeks to slowly sort through everything there, and their feelings about it. To gather every mineral and oddity and examine it, learning how each gemstone had not just its outward look but its metaphorical qualities. For example, the petrified wood and amber were both materials meant to set up the spell of extended life due to their metaphorical qualities, but only for the initial casting. Some things were left unanswered. Fern never learned what the meat was and Bannick had suggested they might not want to know. That Madoc had done things to extend his life and enact his vengeance that Fern would be unable to let go of. That had, unfortunately, got Fern’s imagination going, but they did their best to obey and not think about it, over those two weeks.

They almost hadn’t left at the end, despite their constant fear and loathing of the place now. Almost reached out to the owner, Madoc’s descendant, to ask to purchase it just for the sheer amount of knowledge and sorcery in it—but it had such horrors in it, and also, was really isolated, especially for someone who couldn’t drive. They’d still suggested contacting the owner for emotional reasons, but not their own—Bannick’s. Yet when they’d asked Bannick if he wanted to, Bannick hadn’t responded, and Fern had read distress into that, so they left it alone, at least for now.

After all, they were busy with their decision to commit to a new life. A different life. To really interrogate what that meant.

The journals hadn’t survived. But… the strength Fern had was their own, not borrowed from any old sorcerer. They had spirits to learn from, magical arts to enchant with, and it was all something that they could form their own approach to. 

And who were better teachers than a pair of spirits? Who could teach them more about working with the fairy folk than Aris? Who could caution them more about what working with demons was like than Bannick? Those two weren’t bound in any way, which Fern knew was something generally dangerous, but the debt they owed Fern was huge, and…

Fern didn’t want to call it in. They just wanted their friendship, and maybe…

“This is the last of ’em,” Trev said, putting another box down. “You want help unpacking?”

“Naw, thanks,” Fern said, fistbumping Trev briefly. “I kind of want to flop on the bed and be overwhelmed by boxes for a bit.”

Trev snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I feel you. If you haven’t unpacked them in three months I’m coming here and doing it.”

“No, you won’t,” Fern said fondly.

“Well, I’d think about it,” Trev said. He cracked his knuckles and nodded to Adrian. “Time to go, I think?”

Adrian made a face. He didn’t hate Trev but they weren’t the best of friends, because Adrian was Fern’s brother and Fern and Trev had broken up. “Sure. I’ll drive on the way back.”

Fern waved while they left, then looked around again at the little old place. Other than new appliances, it still felt like it was a time capsule from the 70s or something, but there was something a bit charming in that.

After unpacking the sheets and setting the bed up, Fern collapsed onto it as promised and had a nap.

They’d been tired lately. Everything they were learning cost energy, and they were having to learn how to balance that. It had been especially hard at home, but had kept Fern social; they had to go join their family for regular meals if they were to keep their energy up at all. It had been easier in those two weeks in the cottage when Bannick had been feeding them. Something about macros and proteins and fiber or something?

So it should be easier again here too.

They dreamed of the cottage—no helping that, they’d dreamed of that final confrontation a million times. Sometimes they were fantasy dreams, where everything went right and nothing bad had to happen. Where Miranda was reborn and got to have her own life. More often, they just replayed what happened. A sudden stop, Miranda gone by the time Fern awoke, never seeing her again, but being reassured after that shewas resting now. The memories were bad enough with the screaming. The organs. The blood and pain. Yet worst of all were the nightmares, the bad ends Fern hadn’t seen where they gave in and let Madoc in, lost themself under his iron will, tortured Bannick and Aris themself for turning against Madoc, put Miranda back in the wardrobe.

This dream was one of those last, and they woke with a terrified start, not sure where they were with the ceiling so unfamiliar. There was someone on the foot of the bed and they scrambled backward for a moment, pressing against the headboard.

“I unpacked everything,” Aris said, and then slid off the bed. Fern lost sight of them from one blink to another, and slowly relaxed. 

Something smelled good. They left the bedroom to find that Aris was true to their word, had unpacked the entire house in the short time Fern was asleep. It wasn’t entirely how Fern would have set things up, but they’d leave it as it was for now to not offend. 

Bannick was cooking in the kitchen, his form from behind looking almost as delicious as the smell of the meal he was making. He was wearing tight jeans and a flannel shirt, his hair tied back in a loose braid. He turned as Fern entered, revealing that he was wearing a band t-shirt. His empty face tilted at Fern in acknowledgement. 

Aris had been spending a lot of time in some otherworldly place, though Fern hoped now that they had a house, Aris would show up in it more often—already proving to be true, apparently. Bannick… Fern expected to see Bannick around nearly all the time. He’d already said he didn’t want to keep going into his own otherworldly place. He’d shown it to Fern once, and they could understand why. It was a perfectly lovely, even luxurious bedroom, but the windows showed only void, and the longer Fern spent in it, the more they felt unnerved, uncomfortable, their skin not fitting right, feeling right, slowly becoming more and more aware of their own miserable flaws.

It was one of the reasons they’d been firm on getting a place alone. So Bannick would be able to come out more often.

“Food’s almost ready,” Bannick said. “Working tonight, or resting?”

Fern grinned at him. “Resting, I think,” they said. “But if you have ideas for the next podcast, co-host, we can bandy them around.”

“You’re speaking my language,” Bannick said, laughing.

Fern closed their eyes, luxuriating in the sound of it, their shoulders slowly relaxing. 

This was, they thought, the start of something good. Indulgent, maybe? But free.

And that was the important part.

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