2022-08-14 - Masks

The artefacts may not speak to Jules like they do to Della, but they call her to the library nonetheless. Nursing a slight hangover headache with coffee, she’s up early nonetheless. She’s dragged a chair over to the folding table and set up her laptop there, along with a notepad. Numbers are already taped down to the table for identification purposes. Jules is googling away, scratching down notes as she goes.

Who sells silk gloves anymore? Della's disinclined to slow things down to go thrifting -- plus, isn't this enough sticking her hands in other people's stories? -- or to chance untrustworthy deliveries. (Most of the time, Amazon works, even if Grey Harbor counts as the boonies. Sometimes... not so much.) So, she's got her own wingback chair within Jules' reach, a silk scarf on her lap and another wound about one hand, the other hand resting atop her phone. Her phone is asleep. She is not, not exactly. Her cheek rests against one of the chair's wings, her eyes all but shut. Occasionally she glances out the window.

(She actually does have silk gloves. In storage, with her old life.)

Last to arrive in the library is Una, as reticent as ever when it comes to this familial legacy, though she's been up and about for hours: a cooked breakfast is what everyone needed, surely, after last night's whiskey-fueled excesses.

Mug in hand, she hovers in the doorway— hesitating.

"Part of me," she admits, still waiting there, "expected them to disappear overnight. But it's all still here."

“Yeah?” Jules glances up when Una enters with that remark. She’s been ill-inclined to disturb Della, leaving her be to sleep or not sleep in that wingback chair.

Without being asked, Jules then shares the results of her searches thus far. “I think this one is Tlingit or Haida,” She taps the totemic piece with her forefinger. “Definitely something more northern, either BC or Alaska. Totem poles weren’t really a thing down here at the time.”

Della turns her head, a slow rotation against the worn fabric; her voice is a little gritty still, coffee without the tiniest drop of milk. "Come in," she encourages. Cross that threshold.

She listens to Jules, but tracks Una's expression, her glance ranging further for only a moment's flicker.

It's Jules' reference to Alaska that finally draws Una's feet back into motion, and has her crossing towards the table and those chairs, her housemates and their activities. She gives a faint, rueful little smile to Della, then glances back at the artefacts themselves.

"Alaska," she says. "So far. He surely can't have taken that himself, then— right? He must have been collecting things from other people?"

“I think it was fairly common to trade in stuff like this if you were a white person interested in that kind of thing,” Jules says, one shoulder lifting in a small shrug. “You know the totem pole in Pike Place? That was brought back from Alaska. So yeah, he could have bought stuff too. And I could be totally wrong. It could be as far south as Vancouver Island. I’m still trying to figure out the regional differences.”

From her expression, Google is of limited utility. Coffee, on the other hand—

Della purses her lips, her whistle quiet. "That one." She keeps leaning. "Not exactly 'hop on a plane' tourism. Although, hell, I don't know: what was travel like, back in his time?"

Then, "I also have to ask. What about trading, or raiding, tribe to tribe? How much did that go down."

"It was only a decade or two after Seattle was founded," says Una, attention still focused upon the array of artefacts rather than on her housemates. "Travel can't have been easy. But trading for them— that makes sense. He was a collector."

She's nothing less than scornful for it, reaching out as if to touch one of the objects, then pulling her hand back again.

“Trading and raiding were totally a thing,” Jules replies, hands curled around her mug of coffee. “Trading for goods. Raiding for people. Maybe stuff too. But at least some of the tribes practiced slavery.” She watches Una, head at an angle.

“Do you remember how far afield he talked about going in his memoirs? I definitely remember him talking about Seattle.”

Della lets out a breath, even more silent than the whistle, as Una draws back. Quietly, wryly, "There are collectors and collectors."

She adds, "I never did read those in depth, not like you two," was it work? it's been a while, "so any tl;drs are welcome. And meanwhile... how about we start on an easy one." Not the mask, that she's referred to if only briefly, that she's side-eyed, that calls to her even now.

"Nice to know white people aren't the only slavers out there," is more rueful than honest, really: Una's eyes roll. "Um. Mm— it was hard to tell, because I didn't recognise a lot of place names, mostly because he didn't use a lot of them. He clearly travelled a bit, but not that far, I don't think. Around. Looking for ways to make a buck." Which he must have succeeded at, given the house.

Una sets down her coffee mug out of the way, clasping both hands behind her back, and hesitates, eyes now on Della. Waiting.

“One of our dubious claims to fame—only indigenous Americans to practice hereditary slavery,” Jules answers Una, just as wry. Otherwise, she stays quiet, leaning back on her chair to watch Della handle the first object. Her expression combines anticipation and concern; she’s seen how Della can react to these imbued memories.

"Hereditary," no less. But Della puts that aside, as she must The Asshole and his travels; she shakes out her hands -- it may not actually help, but it seems like the thing to do, even as she attempts to clear her head. (Without the shaking.) This isn't a time for sense-and-run; this isn't stealthy; this is just seeing what there is along with --

-- murmured, "I don't know if I can leave imprints, or affirm imprints, but what I'm trying to do is sense what it is and let it pass through me," her voice burbles, she has to explain, "in a good way, not a too-old-pizza way."

And so she reaches with her silk-muffled hand -- another 'may not actually help, but let's try!' -- to pick up the club and sense what she can of it before touching it directly. Even then, at first it's just a fingertip, but then she smiles, inward and lovely. "This is wonderful." She caresses it, that smooth-worn wood. "It was actually used, as you might expect, and it did... what it was meant for. Hunting. Good weather, good hunting, food coming. A time of plenty. Excitement and timelessness and oh, if we could bottle this." If she could. Her fingers have curled about the wood; her eyes have sharpened; but then she exhales. "This would like a good home." With its people, not with her. She has to remember that. She smooths it one last time, a gloss, perhaps a protection if she can against others' casual bumps.

Can they feel it, what she feels even as she offers it back? The water, the laughing banter, the silver and the blood and the feasts, the sunlit camaraderie? The pleasure of being made well, exercised well to shared purpose?

"Oh," says Una, a little breathlessly. She's watching so intently— has been watching so intently— but now, Della's recitation and then the sharing of it, it draws a little pause, and a happy sound.

"A good home. It shall have one. It'll get to go home. They all will, and I hope they know it... is that weird? I know they're just objects. I know they aren't conscious in any sense of the word. But I— I don't know."

Jules sucks in her breath, and then she smiles, full and tender. She murmurs a word that isn’t English, isn’t intended for her housemates.

“It’s alive in its own way,” Jules says to them next, quiet and pleased and proud.

Not intended for them, but Della looks that way anyway -- and maybe what Jules says next is a translation, and maybe not, but somehow she doesn't ask.

"I hope they know it too. I'd like to find out." Della folds her hands, skin and silk and skin again. Then, "Fishing, water, community, those don't help much in placing where it came from; but maybe the design will. Or the wood? I half want to seclude this one, not let it come into any more contact with anything rougher than it has already; but then again, maybe it's helped ease the others. Or maybe they don't cross-contaminate at all."

She glances at the table, sideways. "Ready when you are."

"So weird," muses Una, with a little shiver-like movement of her shoulders. "That they have memory and feeling. Alive in—" she nods in Jules' direction. In its own way. In their own way.

Her gaze tracks back to the rest of the objects, laid out as they are. "That carving next, maybe?" she suggests, indicating the hand-held piece that is both like and not-like the one Jules has. "Unless you want to go for the mask? Or something else? You pick."

This idea of cross-contamination seems to amuse Jules, whose lips turn up at one corner. “Like an ecosystem,” she murmurs, mainly to herself.

She’s content with Della taking the lead, eyes dark and watchful.

And Della, Della half-smiles in Jules' direction.

But, "That carving, then; let's do it." And, slower, "We'll want to be careful with the mask."

"Why the mask?" Una turns her gaze to it now, studying it thoughtfully, though she clearly can't sense anything. "Ok, the carving, then."

She reclaims her coffee mug now, though it mostly seems to be so that she has something to hold between her hands; she doesn't drink it.

Jules nods with Della’s warning: beware the mask.

“Traditionally,” she says carefully, “putting on a mask meant you became that spirit or creature. Or embodied it. You don’t put on a mask lightly.” She’s fine with saving that for last; the carving is a safer option.

"It's a little too interesting." Della clarifies, or 'clarifies,' by way of waving her fingers all woo-woo-wise. But then, just as carefully, "That's good to know. I'm not... planning to put it on, at this point. Just to tell what I can tell." Let the mask be last, then... and let her not be worn out?

She holds out her silk-wrapped hand: the carving, then, and whatever comes after. With each, she'll be searching not only for feelings but clues.

"Ah," says Una, around the rim of her mug. "Let's not have any of that, then."

That carving's disturbing. Della'll say that right out loud -- and that it's confirmation that something can be erased, which seems useful, but also sets off her antennae as to why. "Set that one aside. Be careful. Maybe not for what it is, but for what it was."

The rest, the rest are a joy, and she shares that too, along with whatever details of the ceremonies she can pick up, that might let them find their home.

And the mask's still sitting there. So Della leaves.

Not for long: just to use the restroom, to wash her hands (twice) and rewrap the silk, and to accept it. She does not put it on. She does not look through its eyes. She does not look into its eyes, does not let it look right at her, not yet. She picks it up and it can have a view of the ceiling while she examines it, her silk-clad fingers not too close to all those teeth. It has that deeply-worked nose, those eyes, that crown.

"Hello."

"Della?" Una's voice quavers just slightly. She's not looking at the mask: just at Della herself.

Jules stays silent, jotting down notes as they go. The ceremonial details interest her most, and she probes for more where she can. No two tribes are entirely alike in their rituals, even when they tell the same stories and honor the same ways of living. Like language, ceremonies are living things, subtly different depending on who speaks them.

She’s poised and ready when it comes time for the mask, watchful and holding her own power near.

Oh. Oh. It's a little gasp, a pleased gasp -- snake or no snake; perhaps it's a garden snake, no anaconda or rattler.

But Della's also cross-checking. "Anyone? Is Hep snoozing in the sun?" She's not going to look. Neither does she bring the mask any closer, though her fingers flex, and she doesn't set it down.

It's Una who answers, setting down her coffee mug again (it's empty-and-or-cold, anyway) so that she can check in the window and confirm: "He's here," she says, having pulled back the curtain just a little— there's a little sunny gap there, just Hephaestus-sized. "Why?"

That's her glancing back again, more than a little nervous (that snake, yes, not hissing but watchful and wary).

She can't sense anything, nothing except the more mundane: the gasp, the flex of fingers.

"We don't have rats!" Della says brightly.

"At least, I do not sense rats, but I sense other things -- like the cats. It's possible the mask is eliding them but it seems unlikely," given the odd spider and others that need not be named. "Athena's not in here, but I had to check about Heppy, to see if it was right... it's sort of like binoculars except round about, up and down. Oh, this is nice."

And Jules deserves attention: does she have a snake, too?

(Would Una's snake like rats?)

“So the mask is heightening your senses?” Jules asks, pen poised but not yet set to paper. “Even without putting it on? Huh. Are you picking anything up from it, or is it just using you?”

Apprehension and anticipation twine together in her like a web where one strand can’t be plucked out without dismantling the whole thing. It’s so close to her own experience with the shaman’s opening tool, and that resonant memory strums through her.

These items of power aren’t bad. Dangerous, yes. But neither bad nor good.

“What does it want?”

"... wow," murmurs Una, eyes bright with interest and also— yes, great trepidation too. "Do you know where this one might have come from at all, Jules? I've never seen anything like it."

Admittedly, that's not difficult: she's never been much of a student of native art.

"This one probably needs to go to safe hands, huh."

"Even without putting it on," Della's able to confirm, without the pain of Alhambra or Ravn's scarred-up jacket or even that letter back at Addington House. She seems herself, uninjured. "I don't believe it's using me; it's just -- letting me see through it." See Jules in that spider's -- guitar's? -- web; see Una and her snake.

(See herself?)

And Della tells them the truth she sees, if not details of their emotions -- perhaps because they're so much like what she notices without the mask, their outsides congruent with their insides -- "It doesn't seem to want anything. It was a big deal. It -- would need to go to safe hands, yes. Absolutely. But it's a tool," and to this tinkerer there's no just a tool, but rather deep appreciation and value that's personal; that's teamwork. "Not a tool-user."

"I want to try it on." She turns to meet their eyes if she can, each in turn.

"If it comes to that, you can take it off me; you know you can." There's more than one reason she has no mug. "But I think it'll be fine."

And unless she meets with sufficient objection, she'll do just that.

Jules shakes her head. “I don’t know enough about the different styles to be able to tell,” she admits. “Except that some people use different colors? Not just the usual red and black.”

Then a nod: yes, safe hands. “I have no problem with you trying it on,” Jules says, looking to Una to see if she agrees or objects. “I think we know now that if anything happens, we have to act fast. Una?”

"A tool," murmurs Una, sounding as if she's trying to convince herself.

Actually, that's probably very true: Della, certainly, will be able to see how the snake within her coils tighter, squeezing and squeezing around her insides as the anxiety rises. "I don't—" she swallows, hard, and then harder still. "Wait. Please."

She takes another moment, fighting back the anxiety. "Jules, what do we do if something happens? Lay it out for me."

Della's able to; Della does, eyes widening -- "I'm waiting. We'll wait." She's a touch ashen, cradling the mask in her palms; when she looks away from Una, it's only to glance to the windowsill, to see if Hephaestus notices.

She doesn't look at Jules; she listens.

“Well,” Jules begins, only to then say, “plug your ears, Della.” It’s not immediately clear if she’s joking or not.

“First thing, I’d pull the mask off her face. You can boost me, right? In case she tries to fight back. If all else fails, tackle her or drop a bookshelf on her.”

Joking.

Not joking.

Hephaestus has very important napping to be done, and doesn't stir.

Una doesn't stir either, but that's because she's listening intently, more ashen than Della and working hard to bite back the anxiety snake that threatens to break free of her body— and take over her brain.

"O-kay," she says, finally, with an apologetic glance for Della, and then a slightly more sure one for Jules. "I can boost you. I think. I've never done it, but I think so. Okay. Okay, yes. Just in case."

Deep breath. "Okay, you can proceed."

Okay, so that gets Della eyeing Jules, and not just to see what that web is up to. Nor does she offer additional suggestions. Only, "I would prefer not the bookshelf, please."

Also dryly, but with more warmth, "Thank you."

So she does: first, a look into its eyes; then, if she gets that far, turning the mask around to inspect its underside and see what she can see; if that passes muster, holding it to her eyes a few inches away. Wearing it, actually wearing it, comes last.

“And if she starts to get feisty,” Jules adds in, with a slightly wicked grin for what feisty could mean, “then see if you can send out some nice calming thoughts? I know she’s the strongest among us when it comes to that, but it can’t hurt to try.”

A tip of her head goes to Della, and Jules is serious again. “I’d also prefer not the bookshelf. Last resort, I promise.”

She closes her laptop, now, and sets down her half-empty mug on a different end table, getting to her feet. It doesn’t feel right to sit, not if she wants to be prepared.

There's a not-quite-hysterical little laugh from Una for 'feisty' which may be an affirmative— though again, she seems a little uncertain as to whether this is something she can really do. She'll try, clearly, if it comes down to it.

For now, however, she goes more solemn, watching Della with the mask with a clear indication of agitation, fought back but still present.

This is fine.

Della gets in a nose-wrinkle at Jules -- feisty! -- but she doesn't quibble at the rest, not with the mask at hand.

This time her indrawn breath's held. Her head turns, the mask eerie beneath the fall of her dark hair, those eyes not quite rightly placed. She does not nudge. She does not push.

Not intentionally.

"Talk about binoculars," she says, finally. "Night-vision goggles. I'm going to stand up now, and turn. Don't drop anything on me." Even if she can see further than she can see, somehow it makes sense to turn, to be able to point: there. There. There."

(There, the stairs.)

"The mask is like Odin Sight," a la Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, "when you're at a higher level, where it shows interesting things," Della reports. Interesting things, not just enemies. This time when she wrinkles her nose it isn't pretty, isn't teasing: "The Veil is like a worn-out bra. It's supposed to be supportive, elastic, but it looks ready to pop."

Jules lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. Della is still herself.

“Odin Sight?” Jules is not familiar; her video game knowledge is limited to the names of the games she knows her brother likes, but not their content. She shakes her head; the reference isn’t important.

“Shit.” The worn-out bra analogy is.

Una too seems faintly relieved at the lack of immediate happenings, though it's not something that lasts: that last reference, that last thought leaves her chewing uncomfortably at her lip as that snake inside of her twists its tail just a little more.

"What... happens if it pops?" is not really a question she seems to expect her friends to be able to answer, but it's the question that comes to mind nonetheless.

"Video game. Like an annotated map. The older version was 'Eagle Vision,' but," never mind now. Della cuts herself off in favor of, "Not the good kind of wardrobe malfunction, I don't think. But, here. Can we go to the stairs? Millie mentioned that one step and it's super duper glowy -- " she scans the table one more time, just to be sure -- "and easier to find, I hope. It's right there."

Never mind that she's pointing through walls.

“Sure, let’s go,” Jules agrees, but she sounds distracted. The thinning, ready to pop Veil keeps her preoccupied.

“You didn’t answer Una’s question. Can you see it?”

"The step?" Una had, it seems clear, entirely forgotten that reference— if she'd even picked it up properly the first time around. Her gaze follows Della's pointing, though of course she can't see through the walls. "Um, sure. Can you move safely? Please don't trip and fall."

The answer to her question seems somehow less important... or maybe it's more important, but she simply doesn't expect there to be a good answer to it.

After all, what can it even mean?

"What question? If it pops? A, wardrobe malfunction; B, not the good kind, not just because America is simultaneously horrified and fascinated by women's bodies, but because it seems inclined to rip and tear and let everything spill out under the influence of gravity -- and we don't need a Door to do that. So I speculate." All that, combined with the distraction of Della's very own VR headset, means that she's following Una's advice and being careful, tapping with her toe ahead of each step in turn, at least for the first few strides; one hand's busy holding the mask on while the other reaches out for walls or housemates or whatever might be helpful along the way.

Jules moves along with the rest, behind the other two, frowning all the while. “Ripping until everything spills out sounds bad. We’re gonna need to come back to that one.”

After the stairs.

Murmured, and just barely audible as a result, is Una's, "I like my bras to do the job they were designed for, thank you very much, and hold things in place." She's practical, though, and reaches out to take Della's hand, and to guide her: out the door and into the hallway, then down a few paces towards the oak staircase with its fancy carved bannister and (sometimes squeaky) treads.

She gives it a baleful glance, even so. None of them steps look as if they'd simply pop open in some way. It's all perfectly solid, thank you very much.

An animation. An animation.

Della's positively giddy, clutching Una's hand as she is -- as if that would keep her grounded as well as upright -- and though she attempts to school her features to look more matter-of-fact, lest her housemates worry, so much of that emotion escapes. "This is amazing." And then, once she's knelt on a lower step and can properly, one-handedly reach, "Pay attention to how I do this."

The pull. The pop. Let's hope there aren't any booby traps, because Della's face (and the mask) is right in there.

Jules doesn’t look worried as she follows along and observes. She looks amused. Even with Della’s face hidden behind the wooden mask, even with Della trying to tamp down on it, her emotions broadcast. She stands to one side to watch, trying to see the trick of it, though it’s hard with limited space on the stairway.

“What is it?” Jules wants to know, even before the prize has been revealed.

Were Una less anxious, she too much be amused; as it is, she's grounding herself as much as Della with the squeeze of her hand, then stands off to the other side, offset by Jules, to watch. (Watching or not, it's pretty unlikely she's going to remember the trick of opening the step— both because she's not a tinkerer, and because she's distracted, just generally).

Della exhales, fingertips gentle as she reaches in one-handed, murmuring something about needing a ribbon to keep this on -- and up come the books, and the envelope she has to narrow her eyes at to read, and -- "'Una.' Una! It's for you! Special delivery! Look!" OMG!

If they all give her feelings, let's hope they're not so strong that she drops everything.

Jules will need to do it herself, later, in order to learn the trick of it. For now, she watches as carefully as she can.

“Millie’s diaries?” she hazards a guess, spying those leather-bound books. “Ooh, something for Una!” she adds with excitement to the end of Della’s exclamations. “Open it!”

"For me?" Una sounds genuinely bewildered, and perhaps a little dubious too: why is she getting a letter? Why does it have her name on it? Why?

She's a little reluctant in reaching out a hand to take the envelope, and in opening it, too, sliding one finger beneath the wax to release it. She turns away to read, and then paces away from her friends to continue, her back to them.

She's very silent, then: very still.

So sad.

It's why Della twists to sit down, resting the little books -- diaries? -- on her knee, topping them with the upturned book: to look at Una, or rather Una's back.

Then, after a moment, she returns the mask to her face, so she can see: just enough, just to make sure the snake isn't strangling her.

All the storehouse holds now is dust.

Una’s not going to read the letter aloud? Jules bites back the request—and, as time passes, her prompts. She struggles with it, and her expression shows as much.

While she waits, Jules sits down next to Della, quirking her eyebrow questioningly. At first, it’s for Una, and then for Della’s choice to return the mask to her face. “Let me try,” Jules requests impulsively.

Una doesn't turn around. Una stays where she is, shoulders quivering, and simply breathes.

She may need a moment.

(Or ten.)

"Hm?" Still watching Una, careful for the snake -- or any other beasts that might creep or crawl nearby -- Della offers Jules the first couple books.

"No, the mask," says Jules, just a tiny bit impatient.

Abruptly, Una turns around again. Her face is tear-streaked; her eyes red-rimmed and raw. The letter and its envelope are thrust in the direction of the two others and then dropped: to fall to the floor, perhaps, or be rescued, though Una herself won't note either.

She is on her way down the corridor towards the kitchen, or perhaps further afield.

"Fine -- " though Della's not thrilled about it; "Careful, okay?" With the mask? With what the mask might do?

She's just handing it over when Una turns and flees, and only stays long enough to make sure Jules takes it in hand -- if she does -- before hurrying to scoop up the papers and head after Una. The books? Abandoned.

In the end, Jules doesn’t get around to trying on the mask. Not when she sees Una like that. It’s in her hands as she too gets up to follow with alacrity.

“Una?”

Una's not in the kitchen, though the back door being open is an easy enough clue for where she'll be: outside, sitting on the chair she often retreats to, shaded by the shed. One leg is crossed beneath her, while the other is propped up so that she can wrap her arms around it protectively. She looks up, studying her two housemates for a long moment before inclining her chin forward.

"Read it," she says, simply.

Della slows, spotting Una: sitting is good. She joins her a pace or two off, the sun on her shoulders, her face in shadow -- except for when she briefly looks back to Jules. Would she trade the letter for the mask? Regardless, she starts to read out loud until she gets to that hard, ("...already determined,") stop. "Here." She angles it to be easier for Jules, too, to read in relative silence.

It hasn't escaped her that Una chose to share the letter with them, has shared many things with them; sometimes she glances over, once after a caught breath, and she doesn't guard her expression to impassivity, though neither does she let it out to roam. So many regrets. Once, a caught gasp; later, much later, a near-laugh. She sighs, and straightens.

"Cassandra," is eminently wry. "Oh, Una..." and then she reads it over again.

Jules crowds in at Della’s side to look on, even as the other woman begins by reading aloud. She’s a slower reader, which matters when Della falls silent, and it takes her a minute to catch up to the names reference. Even then, Jules looks puzzled, unfamiliar with the mythology.

“What?” she asks, angling the question to Della instead of the letter’s addressee.

Quieter and more serious, Jules notes, “There’s a lot here.”

Try as she might, Una can't stop herself from looking positively whey-faced when Della starts to read, though some of that eases— a little, a very little— when she swaps to silent reading instead. It gives her a moment (several moments) to dash away some of the tears crowding about her eyes, and to try and compose herself.

"Cassandra," she says, answering the question in a dull voice, for all that it was directed at Della and not her. "An ancient Trojan priestess cursed to utter true prophesies that no one would ever believe. I have to assume that was deliberate on Millie's part. So this Cassandra," she gestures towards the pages of the letter, "chose not to speak her truth at all. And look at what she did."

Bitter, bitter words.

"Trojan, as in Trojan horse," Della murmurs. Also, Apollo is a jerk.

She starts to fold up the paper, to return it to its envelope, saving as much of its seal as she can. "Eighty. She lived a long time with that."

“Or Trojan condoms,” Jules can’t resist throwing back.

She crosses to Una and squats down beside her chair, reaching for her forearm with the intention of giving it a quick squeeze.

“Even if she thought she was doing the right thing, that was a dick move. I’m so sorry.”

At another moment, Una might make a comment about Trojan condoms and the appropriateness (or not) of that particular brand name; this is not that moment, not when her brain is too focused on everything else to fire neurons in that configuration.

She swallows, instead, brown eyes dropping to watch Jules as she squeezes her arm; she doesn't pull away, just swallows again, thick and hard, as if there is a lump there too thick to allow her to speak further.

"Eighty-one. Millie died in 1940, didn't she? Before the census. I hope it made her miserable, just like she made my mom miserable. The dickest of dick moves. I wish she weren't dead so I could yell at her."

Della's neurons, though... the dark-haired woman stifles a short snicker, tapping one more bit of wax into place. But Jules has the right idea; Della joins the redhead the rest of the way, only she stands to her side and a little behind; she has her back. She has their backs.

"I'm so sorry, Una," is nearly in unison. "All the yelling."

She bites back the rest: the notebooks with information and the apology and the instructions about history, about traps, and what were her Dreams like, anyway? In lieu, very softly, "I wonder what Millie wrote, that Cassandra didn't tell us."

Jules purses her lips, but she stays silent, frowning in sympathy, and doesn’t protest Una’s outrage.

“Who knows.”

In any case, Jules releases a sigh and sets down the mask that she still hasn’t tried on, settling cross-legged next to it. More comfortable than a squat. “The Dreams all sounded very mysterious.”

There's no one alive for Una to yell out— no one that would satisfy her, anyway, and that leaves her anger without an outlet except to fizzle away. Fizzling takes time though, so for now her agitation lingers, even if she's abruptly very intent on what Jules says.

"She would have written that before the big storm last year," she supposes, abruptly. "I wish she'd dated it so we could know for certain, but that's my understanding. The storm that led into the time skip. That's weird to know; that she knew it was coming, in some form. Did her Dreams really foretell something? And if so..."

"...Should we believe her about the rest," Della murmurs. "Cassandra, indeed."

But. Now that Jules has sat, she can see. The mask is on the ground. Let's repeat: the mask is on the ground.

"If you really want to be annoyed with her, you could call her Cassie. -- Jules, are you going to try that on? Get it over with?" Get it off the ground? "It was nice, what she said about not letting Irvings' history be a trap, instead of 'you must defend the family homestead against all comers for eternity.'"

“Game changer,” Jules murmurs in answer to Una’s remarks about Cassandra’s Dreams.

There’s more to consider there, but Della’s prompting has her turning her attention back to the mask. Jules lifts it and holds it up to her face, peering through the empty eye sockets. She turns her head this way and that, then lowers the mask to her lap. “Nothing unusual for me,” she reports, sounding disappointed. “It must only work for people with your set of skills.”

Jules' attempt to put the mask on is a distraction for Una, who turns her head so that she can watch, brow furrowing intently as she waits to see what happens. Her expression suggests she's as disappointed as Jules is for the result and— perhaps notably— she makes no move towards requesting to be able to take a turn for herself. "How peculiar," she says. "I wonder at its provenance. What it was used for, specifically."

It leads her back, through convoluted thinking, to, "I want to defend the family homestead. Not because of the family, but because it belongs to me. Why would I leave it? I have everything I need right here."

Is she disbelieving Cassandra? Well...

Studying Jules, Della nods with some reserve, just a commiserating twist to her lips; their third may not volunteer, but, "Try it too, Una?" she suggests anyway. "Just in case." While she's at it, "It's a good question, what it was used for, before."

"But about your house... there isn't a reason to leave it, since you like it, is there? You grew up without much history and here you have it, so much of it. I suppose... what I liked about what your grandma said was that it seemed like if the family did factor into it, if you did care about that, she was encouraging you to do what you want anyway and never mind them. What if your dream was a 50s rambler," there's just a glimpse of her teasing smile, "or a condo in New York? She couldn't know."

At Della’s suggestion, Jules holds the mask out for Una to take and try.

“Seeing the spirit world,” she determines in a tone that has an unspoken duh behind it. “Life was tied to it in a way that it isn’t now.”

She’s silent on the topic of the house, but her expression takes on a thoughtful—and slightly troubled—cast.

Una hesitates, eyes on the mask Jules holds out. Her teeth worry at her lower lip as, finally, she reaches out to take it, holding it up over her face. She squints through it, eyes not quite in alignment, looking first at Jules then at Della, then further afield; she goes cross-eyed. "No," she says, drawing it back away from her face and setting it uneasily in her lap. "It's like— I can almost feel something. But more like trying on someone's glasses when you're a kid, and it being just not quite right."

It doesn't stop her fingertips from brushing over the fragile surface. "I don't know why she'd think the family mattered, in that case," is a little mulish. "Or why I'd need her... permission isn't quite right, but blessing? It's just dumb. The letter changes nothing."

"Interesting," Della breathes. "May I?" Try it again, see if it works, get her hands on it once more. "Your vision might coincide better later on."

She lets the letter go, if only figuratively, with a nod.

“Nothing?” Jules repeats with a small lift of her eyebrows.

Just the one word. And her skepticism.

Una picks up the mask again, lifting it so that she can offer it back to Della. "I don't think it will," she says, thoughtfully. "Though I suppose it's possible."

She shifts, then, glancing back at Jules. "What?" Beat. "What do you think it changes?"

Della accepts the mask gladly, the letter kept safely in one hand, and tries it on: she looks at each of her housemates in turn for similarities, differences, while they speak.

“Not for me to say,” Jules replies, rising from her seated spot on the ground. “I just generally think that communication has an impact. Whatever it might be.”

Her true opinion is reined in tight. For Della’s eyes, it’s a mantle of respect, along with a measure of reservation. Perhaps a chain link of disapproval.

Una's metaphorical snake is still twisting about her stomach though with less intensity: it otherwise seems inclined to linger about her shoulders, hissing spitefully, its hackles (not that snakes have hackles, hush) raised— though not at either Jules or Della as such.

"Hmm," she says, noncommittal. At least she's drawn her knee back down, less inclined to protect herself with the screen of knee and arm. It means her hands don't have anything to do, though, and fluster in her lap.

If only the mask could be made into near-invisible contact lenses... Della lowers it with reluctance, but also a touch of relief: it isn't the lightest thing in the world. "How about more coffee," she half-suggests, with a pat of Una's chair rather than her actual shoulder, ready to step inside.

“I’ll make it,”Jules volunteers, depriving Della of the opportunity by turning to retreat to the kitchen.

“In any case,” she adds, though Della can likely sense the evasion inherent in her offer, “I’m hungry. I’ll see what I can scrounge up for us.”

"I'm going to stay out here a bit longer," says Una, a frown visible about the lines of her forehead though she's careful not to let it pervade her voice as well. "You two go in. I'll join you in a bit. I just need—"

She shrugs.

"Take what you need," Della... encourages? affirms? Whatever it is, Una's already doing it. She narrows her eyes after Jules-the-opportunity-thief and follows; still, if Jules really wants to take care of coffee and food, she'll deal with other things: getting the mask to safekeeping; taking a picture of the letter, likewise; picking up those books and putting the step back into place so no one falls into it and down the stairs; and settling in to read. in the kitchen for that last, ideally, so it's easy for Jules to have a go. Even Una, sometime, if she chooses.

It's already been a long day.