2022-10-23 - Visiting the Wizard

With fall in full swing, the rain is unending. It’s yet another grey, overcast day when it comes time to drive up the coast. Jules’ car is on its last legs, so she’s asked Della to drive for the trip while she plays navigator.

Neah Bay sits at the northern tip of the Olympic Peninsula on the Makah Reservation. It’s better off than Taholah by the looks of it, with a more robust tourist economy. Not that there are too many tourists around now, in the off-season. They’ve been directed to a small waterfront house, white clapboard that could use a new coat of paint. A pumpkin sits by the red door, though it hasn’t been carved, and grey cat stares at the interlopers from beneath a swing on the porch. She’s staying dry, thank you very much.

“You got the mask? Or do you want me to carry it?” Jules wants to know as they pull up and park.

Since that early trip to Grandmother's House (minus the big bad wolf; Charlie is a good dude), it's become an easy semi-routine when needed; besides, Della likes her own car and her own hands on the wheel.

"I've got it," Della says now, cheerfully, no matter how many times she's been asked as they planned this mission; she pats her large waterproof purse -- bought in the last year and all too basic black, unlike the oxblood boots she keeps tending so they last and last and last -- and tucks her hood over her hair for even the short walk, and looks about with curiosity. It's the cat on which her gaze lingers, but she doesn't call to it; her, "Good cat," stays under her breath. Her hems are only a little festooned with cat hair by way of bona fides; that's what lint rollers are for.

(Although, somehow, the Pompeii cats' fur has a tendency to stick.)

"After you." The car's beep is soft, definitive. Onward.

The back seat is a good place for Una to be: her own little protective bubble, perhaps, where she can curl up and stare (somewhat moodily, it's true) out of the window at the grey, grey day. She's a little slow to get moving, to uncoil herself and shake free the stiffness that even a not-THAT-long car ride can encourage; she's slow to get moving mentally, too, though Della's reference to the cat does draw her attention and encourage a thin smile.

'After you' says Della, and the redhead draws her shoulders back, aiming to bring up the rear even so. Words— well, they'll need to come later.

Here are the things they already know:

Bill Swift is a contact of Jules’ grandmother, though Ada hasn’t met him in person. She knows of him as a person of power. These things have a way of passing around by word of mouth.

That man up at Makah, he can look at you and tell you your whole history.

It’s not quite that simple, but that’s what people say.

According to Ada, he’s the protégé of someone she knew back when — that is, when she was seeking help for Jules’ mother decades prior. (Jules fills in the latter part.) Bill works for the local health services as a psychologist. Fitting, given his set of gifts.

The man that opens the front door looks like an unexceptional middle-aged person of average height and build. This is only to the eye of the uninitiated; for these three, his power sings. Although he smiles in welcome, his hawk eyes are too penetrating to be comfortable.

The cat streaks inside. He holds the door open and steps back to let them in, too. “Come on in. There’s a pot of coffee made, on account of the weather. Get you something to drink?”

His house is in a state of organized chaos. The sole bookshelf is stuffed beyond capacity, with volumes tucked on top of the rows, some of which look two deep. But more than books, this is a house of things. Woven blankets folded over the backs of chairs. Tumbled sea glass and shells in baskets and jars. Fishing gear occupies an entire corner, beneath a carving of a salmon. Walking sticks. A compass, an old lantern, and a hunting knife on the mantle of the fireplace. And more besides.

“So you were sent to me because you have something, but you don’t have the story that goes with it,” Bill says without preamble as he moves towards the kitchen and the coffee.

Jars of herbs line the counters, and more are drying in bunches from hooks mounted to the side of the cabinets.

Her soles wiped on the mat -- it's a short walk, but still -- Della passes the threshold along with thank you and please and a nod that gives him the confirmation he doesn't need. She glances back at Una and half-smiles in a way that's part solidarity, part making sure the door still appears to exist after all those Dreams. And although she removes her coat, hanging it over one arm, it's as though to add protective padding to her bag as though he can't see right through.

She doesn't sit.

She doesn't touch. Though, oh, her eyes rove the room as though she'd love to, perhaps a little too much.

She doesn't follow, though she glances again at Una-of-the-kitchens and then at Jules; to them, low-voiced, "Do you recognize much?" No, she moves closer to the mantle, to its inhabitants. That shouldn't hurt. Should it?

With Della murmuring, Una— squaring her shoulders— gives her a shake of the head, and turns her attention towards Bill. "Coffee would be great," she says. "Please. Just the thing, in this weather. I brought—" she produces a small box from the bag slung over her shoulder, offering them out. "Cookies. Snickerdoodles, because cinnamon and sugar is comfort food to me, and that's always what I want this time of year."

She glances over her shoulder at the other two, and then adds, "We found some artefacts. They were..." She inhales. "Collected by an ancestor of mine, and now we want to return them. But this one— it has power."

Her study of Bill is appraising, and with a quiet flex of her power, she tests out his aptitudes: what's he got there.

“You mean like native stuff?” Jules asks Della in return, voice pitched to a similar level. “I dunno, but I bet you my grandma would kill for one of those blankets.” A tip of her head indicates one with blue, yellow, and white stylized designs on a black background. The proliferating eyes stare out watchfully.

Bill sets out the mugs and pours the coffee, calling to Della even as his back’s to her, “You can hang your coat in the closet right there.” He slides a mug across the counter towards Una. “Cream or sugar? Thanks for the cookies. Go ahead, sit down, make yourselves comfortable.” Is that implicit permission for Della to touch?

Coffee served, the man turns, attention falling on Una. Those sharp eyes don’t miss anything, and it’s clear that he knows what she’s doing. He doesn’t smile, but there’s a suggestion of it in the creasing around his eyes. He makes no move to stop her. And surely he could, if he wanted to.

His gifts cluster around the powers of perception—and here, he’s more powerful than even Mikaere. He can read a person in the time it takes to blink. Or a thing, for that matter.

“I see myself as a kind of historian,” he tells Una, adding his own description to what he knows she sees. “People come to me because they need help making sense of their own stories. Often, they can’t see how they fit in with those of others or the larger picture. I untangle narratives and weave them together. Psychology isn’t a science. It’s an art.”

Bill gestures for them to sit, bringing the box of cookies to stick on the low coffee table. “Same goes for the rest of the world around us, whether it’s from nature or manmade. Everything and everyone wants to tell you their stories, if you know how to listen.” His gaze turns to Della with her itchy fingers, the hands she’s being so conspicuously careful with, and this time his smile reaches his mouth, too. “I know what it’s like,” he tells her without specifying what.

He could have spoken it silently, but he does not.

“So this artifact,” he says then. “What has it told you already?”

Della's turn to glance, at the blanket Jules points out, and tip her head in acknowledgement. No, she's not about to lean against that one. (Those eyes; those beaks.) Even with that possible permission, she leaves compass and lantern be, the better to hang up her coat -- car keys and her favorite gloves going into her bag, though not the mask's pocket -- with minimal touching involved; her sleeve itself is useful for that, less against germs than against her.

Which doesn't mean she doesn't listen, even if she also doesn't tap, eyes narrowing with interest: untangling those narratives and embroidering -- weaving -- interlacing them. She doesn't pull out her own stitchery; once she's collected her coffee (neither cream nor sugar, unless they're already out), careful of the cushions (the blankets, the cat), she sits. And gives him a smile, one that's rueful, appreciative.

No cookies for her, even though they're Una's. Not with what she'll be touching.

"It reveals," she answers, and doesn't hide the hint of fascination in her voice: just a hint, however, lest it become a shout. "It helped us find old family belongings, hidden belongings, for our householder," who ought to have respect beyond cookies. "It also showed us a worrisome thinness in what we've been calling the Veil. Here."

After a sip of coffee, the mug soon set down, she rummages for the mask itself and sets it neatly in her lap -- but still padded in silk, some of her scarves. There's no hurry. And, maybe, there's a little theater.

"Not for me— thanks." Una takes her coffee, black as it comes, her voice even. It'd likely be rather less even a few moments later, as she takes in that deep, deep power, meeting Bill's eyes a little hesitantly, though she inclines her chin into a nod of acknowledgement.

She sits, perched carefully on the edge of one of the chairs, her coffee cradled in her lap and held securely with both hands. "That's fascinating," she murmurs, and she seems to mean it genuinely: history, as always, is _fascinating. Her gaze slides away, but only briefly: to linger upon the still-padded mask, then to flick back towards Bill.

Clearly, his reaction— when it is properly revealed— matters.

Jules collects her coffee (with cream) and chooses the seat that Della decides against; she settles into the seat with the blanket she likes and resists the urge to tuck her feet up on the chair. “It doesn’t work for Una or me,” she supplies. “Just Della.” A nod indicates which woman she means.

Although he sits, Bill’s upper body inclines towards Della as if drawn by the mask in her lap. His face goes still with intent attention, but he doesn’t comment on what she says. Not yet. Perhaps he likes theater too. “What else are you hoping it will tell you?” His gaze flicks to each woman in turn. “What is it that you’re here for?”

Bill. Bill who has the will -- the Della inclines her head as she's pointed out, an angle akin to his.

Her brown hand's a relaxed curve about the mask's outline, quietly protective, for it's not as though it's likely that anyone's coffee would animate, would fly and spill and stain and burn. Her rings are set with stones that jewelers would call only semi-precious. It's the coffee-hand, when she's holding it, where color's come back over the summer to what once was faded.

"What there is to know," she says, wry but unapologetic, humor lurking in those dark-lashed eyes. It isn't specific. She knows. It's also true.

"Anything and everything," agrees Una, her words following Della's, though there's a not of apology in that.

She hesitates.

"We're... there are more and more signs that things are wrong. Maybe the mask can help us figure that out; and maybe it can't, and it just needs to be returned to where it belongs. But we'd like to know, because if there is anything that can help— it's all a lot."

Bill looks faintly amused by their lack of specificity, though he sobers quickly as Una speaks of the signs. “Ah. Yes.”

“Things have been wrong for a long time,” he murmurs. “The elders knew that, though we are not so good at remembering these days. Time isn’t the simple progression of past-present-future that we like to think it is. Every time one of these things resurfaces, I’m reminded of that. Maybe the maker was thinking of you when they created this.”

Now he stretches out his own hands to receive the mask. His fingers are long, unadorned, nails trimmed.

“ I had a dream where I was in the past,” Jules contributes, prompted by Bill’s meditation on non-linear time. “My ancestor said Tsinoqua was coming.” She pauses in time with Bill’s sharp look. “It was when the settlers arrived. He said all the children were going to die. But it wasn’t just the kids then. I’ve been thinking,” and here she glances at the other two women, “that maybe he meant the Haggleford plague, too. Killing the kids wherever he is.”

Della, sitting forward, holds off on her own questions in favor of Jules' contribution -- she isn't going to override that -- and then to second it with a nod. But she's not just waiting; she's examining Bill, and his hands, before she decides to unwrap the mask and hand it to him at last. The mask faces him, nearly as though she were wearing it. She waits until he's gotten a firm grip before she lets go.

(And within the oxblood and crimson scarves, separated from the mask by one of night-sky blue -- and no longer concealed by its gleaming power -- lies the fragment of Huxw-huxw's eye from long ago. It was the trainee's. It is hers.)

In the end, she doesn't ask in words at all.

"Time is a flat circle," murmurs Una, who promptly wrinkles her nose: it may not really be relevant to the conversation at hand, but it is, in its own way, acknowledgement that time is less linear than it sometimes seems. Then, more loudly: "The mask, and the other artefacts, passed to us via a time... loop? I'm not sure. From the late 1930s to us, no in between. So—" Time is relative. Time is complicated.

She's biting her lip, though, trying (it seems) not to think too deeply on Jules' revelation. Focusing, instead, on Bill and the mask.

His gaze snags on the splintered Dream object, but Bill takes these things one at a time. First, the mask. He holds the mask carefully, respectfully, looking at it straight on for several long seconds before he begins to turn it around in his hands. His long fingers caress the carved lines, then the unpainted interior surface. "This has known several faces," Bill observes even before his power blooms.

It fills the room with an uncanny warmth, centered on this middle-aged man bent over the mask. Low, solemn sentences roll from him in a language none of them speak, though Jules strains to comprehend it, frowning in her concentration. He finally falls silent when he lifts the mask to his face to experience its power for himself. A few seconds more, and then Bill lets it rest in his lap, face up.

"Hello, friend," he says now in English, fondly. Bill looks up. "You said this came to you from your ancestor?" he asks, gaze finding Una for verification. "They took it from Seattle, back when it was still a mud-logged timber town. It's from the Duwamish, the people who lived there. It's a helper by nature -- it aids perception for people like me and like you." A nod for Della. "It reveals things that are hidden -- you saw that for yourself, you said. But it's not just things. Hidden potentials. You said it showed you a thinness in the world, right? It's showing you what might happen. And if it will show you that, there's a good chance it will also show you what might rip it further apart or stitch it back together."

He holds the mask back out to Della. "Here. Speak to it and ask it if it will show you what it saw in Seattle, and you'll see what I mean." His mouth twitches to the side in brief amusement as he tells Una, "I think your ancestor thought they were appropriating this mask for themselves -- but the mask may have been using your ancestor, too, to come into your hands at this moment in time."

Della watches him, what he does, just as closely as she can without physically moving nearer, her pupils wide and black enough to risk swallowing her irises; she breathes in silently, deeply, as though she could inhale that warmth too. If her phone could only record the sight of him --

As it is, her finger twitches infinitesimally. She has shortcuts set up. It would be so easy to cue the mic, and hope that the Veil would let that last. But.

"Thank you," Della murmurs once she's set temptation aside, accepting the mask in its place. Wryly, "I do hope, regarding ripping or stitchery, it's clear which is which." She doesn't let the items touch directly. She does pause for what he's said last, marveling even as her focus widens for Una's reaction.

It's only afterward that she turns the mask to herself, talking to it so quietly as to be unintelligible, though something of her intonation speaks of praise -- and then fits it to her face. She's looking at Bill as she does, though her eyes have narrowed as though expecting some blinding light. More audibly, "Yes. Please show us, do, what there is to know..."

"Show us what you saw in Seattle. Show us what there is to see." It's us, not me.

Una's eyes go very wide: first for Bill's interaction with the mask, and then, then for the rest of it. A nod, along the way, confirms that the mask is indeed from her ancestor, but it's that latter remark, the very last one, that really draws her attention.

"I— but— fuck me, I wish I could tell Millie that." It eases some kind of tension in her shoulder and around her eyes; when she glances back at the mask, and at Della as a by-product of that, it's with a different kind of respect.

The mask obliges. Its resonance smells like salt-fish-mud-stink and sounds like the slapping of the tide against timber. Excitement lies thick for this early vision of Seattle and what it will become: rustic wooden buildings and raised walkways over the mud tide flat where the settlers have built their town, with hewn tree trunks in controlled falls down a great slope to reach the shore. Settlements on tide flats smell. Sewage washes back in.

Then it spins dizzyingly, and the same site is underground, covered and cool and lamp lit. Rising, rising, the perspective breaks into nearer time, first automobiles shifting to modern cars to all-electric vehicles, buildings rising overnight. Possibility glitters, specters of zooming monorails and aerial byways that might one day come to be.

Bill waits patiently, saying nothing.

“Could your grandmother have known?” Jules asks Una in the meantime. “Didn’t she say something about intuition or dreams or something?”

Millie. Della has only time for that quick, fervent nod before the mask goes on. And it means her expression isn't visible when she looks at Bill, but there isn't the same recoil as when, moments later, those smells roar in. She sinks into it, though, murmurs praise to the mask, lives through the spin without throwing up -- it must be all those video games -- and oh, oh. And yet. The words around her pass by as the waves do; lingering on the possibilities, she reports, "It's mostly progression, construction. Overview. Jules, do you want to share? Give me questions," everyone, says her change in timbre.

Though, in the meantime, "Mask, dear mask, how far can you see?" Stretch, she invites, like her shoulders do.

"She said a lot of things, and— I don't know, I'd have to study it again." As if Una hasn't read that letter again and again and again, after her initial disquiet (which is not to say that there has not been additional disquiet). "I know she mentioned dreams.

That's concrete; Della, with the mask, and her experience of the Seattle-that-was, is far less so, and draws its own kind of disquiet.

She licks her lips, uncertainly. "I don't know what to ask," she admits. "Or what to..." Her eyes find Bill again. "All of this is beyond me."

Bill stays silent. Unhelpful, maybe, but this is on them to discover, to find their questions. His focus shifts to the second object Della’s brought along, and he reaches for it, expression thoughtful.

Watching, Jules frowns as Della invites them into the experience, vicarious as it may be. “Maybe…does that thing from my Dreams reach Seattle? What happens if it does? Does the mask just show Seattle, or will it show what would happen out here, too?”

Seattle is a thriving young city, full of creative ambition. It glimmers with intimations of possible futures, holograms and new transportation and tech, always tech. These questions, though, cast shadows over such visions. The cityscape darkens before Della’s eyes, bright clean metallic surfaces and greenery blanketed with ash. A violent shake, and the city cracks apart. A skyscraper crumbles, glass raining down on broken pavement. It’s eerily silent as vehicles collide and buildings buckle. The iconic Pike Place Market sign falls; the red neon winks away. Beyond, the totem pole erected by the market tips onto its side before the entire slope shifts and cleaves off, disappearing into the Sound.

The people in this vision are shadows, slinking through the wreckage.

Sorry, Bill: Della holds up a just-a-moment finger, will stay him if she can, so she can not only look at the fragment -- what does it look like with the mask? surely she's looked before, unless it had been made to slip her mind? -- but also examine him examining it.

Sorry, everyone who's 'listening': just as she had when they had first tried out the mask (or other times, possibly involving neighbors...), Della's begun to share: the joy, the inventiveness, the excitement, the application. It isn't pure; perhaps it could be, were she more inclined and more skilled, but as it is... the dark-haired woman's own delight tinges it, can be teased out from it rather than something integrally fused, a celebration of that vitality and all there is to see.

It's just that when Jules speaks, when Della hears and understands her question, when that means the vision changes... the rest changes too. She sucks in a breath, one that chokes on the ash, the too-familiar ash. Breathless, blurted: "Quake." If she were more skilled and more inclined, she might not know it so viscerally. "No, no. ... 'And it all comes a-tumblin' down..." is word-association, is a whisper.

(At least Bill can snag the fragment, if he wants. It's so much.)

Una's breath escapes in something akin to a sigh as Della shares, first with pleasure and then— then, much less so. "Oh," she says. Quake. "No, no, no, no. No, we can't let that happen. No."

Bill stills his reach and sits back until Della’s had her chance and given the all-clear. The fragment of Dream-mask is alive to the other mask’s sight, continuing to take in the world, this world—but for whom? Huxw-Huxw is dead and gone, isn’t he? It’s no inert object, but spins like a galaxy. Spin it just so, and the bird’s ferocious power will fly out like sparks.

Jules goes ashen, nauseous with the sharing that goes deeper than words. She breathes fast and shallow, bending over her knees. “Shit. Della, turn it off!”

Della gets a glimpse -- another glimpse? -- out of the corner of her eye, but that spinning screen-saver can't be allowed to entrance her just now; and then there's Jules, and pronouns, and she starts to move the mask away but there's still that vision and...

...it takes a little bit, okay? Lurching decompressing that veers too far into 'watch the pretty lights'/'everything's fiiine' before Della can quite dial it back to zero.

She's breathing hard, too. And then she hiccups.

Again, Una's breathing: laboured and sharp and intense. She holds on to the vestiges of her composure, clinging on to the coffee in her cup, and the arm of the chair in which she sits, as if by holding tight to these physical objects, she might anchor herself despite the continued transference, while Della dials it back.

The hiccup draws an almost-giggle, shaky and awkward and not-quite hysterical.

"But you said it's what might happen, not that it will happen, right?" The question is for Bill, and the redhead's eyes are wide and wider still for it.

Bill could undoubtedly block it all out if he chose. He does not. Instead, he lets Della’s projection wash over him. For a second, his eyes flutter closed, before he watches the women to assess their responses. “Hidden potential,” he answers Una. “Some things are closer to the surface than others.”

This quake? It rips through the senses.

Behind it, alongside it, alien to it and yet somehow connected, a flare of glee. Delight in destruction.

It all comes tumbling down, goes the singsong voice that isn’t Della’s.

Bill stands with a hiss. “You are not welcome here.” His voice is taut as a bowstring.

"Ashes," Della is murmuring, her free hand's fingers trickling down the air like snowflakes that aren't.

She hiccups again. And Bill --

"Excuse me?" For the noise? For -- "I'm sorry," quick and contrite, gathering the mask to her, wide-eyed as Una. She hasn't realized --

"Hidden potential," repeats Una, with not-quite-a-question to her voice, though that's dropped soon enough: Bill's standing, speaking, hissing, and she's abruptly standing as well.

It means she's not on hand to reassure Della; it means she's focused, intent and intense, on Bill, and on—

“Shit, it must have followed me.” Jules springs to her feet too, alarmed. “Somehow, I don’t know—“

Bill’s words aren’t in English, this time, as he speaks to the presence that both is and isn’t there. The mask amplifies this being and its potential to Della’s sight: a growing stain, corrosion seeping through the minute tears in reality and ripping them further. It isn’t human, but there is an intimation of whipcord hair, the gleam of bone-white teeth curving in ravenous delight. Ways of manifesting to human senses, conveying a malice both young and old.

You think you can banish me? The voice stirs from a corner. Despite the daylight, shadows gather there, thick and viscous as ink.

“Behind you!” Jules reaches for Una’s arm, grip tight.

"'It'?" Della's staring back and forth between them, but then she must realize enough to put that mask back up -- and then she's clutching her other things as she gets up, fragment and scarves and purse, stuffing the former into the latter in the manner of a grad student after hours with the librarian coming. An evil librarian, who's never washed her hair.

It's wrong. It's wrong. Delight should be good, not malicious -- the glittering shouldn't be turned --

The grip of Jules' hand upon her arm is solidifying, for Una, who straightens, back and shoulders a sharp line, and inhales firmly. "Light," she says, urgently. "Jules, can you make light?"

She can make fire, which is not quite the same, but still: it hovers above her hand as she turns to look. "You don't belong here," is certain and determined.

“Light?” Jules repeats a little stupidly. It’s never occurred to her before to try. Is it something she can do? There’s no reason not to try, and so she does. It’s a matter of gathering ambient light and redirecting it, pulling the pale glow of day inwards from where it filters in through the front window. The soft, diluted light brightens under her care, consolidating, then cast towards the twisting shadows.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t want to listen. It writhes away from the light in a grimacing curlicue. My turn.

Fire leaps up in a sudden blaze. Una’s fire, wrested away and amplified. The amber-red tracery of the fishing net pooled by the door flares like some ghoulish script, a calligraphy that writhes before their eyes before vanishing in the blaze that overtakes the wood paneling and hungrily races to consume the carpet on which they stand.

Bill’s voice lifts in an incoherent shout of agony. He grabs a blanket to try to beat back the growing flames.

Why on earth did she put her coat away?! Della squeaks as the fire flares -- but then the net's destroyed; horror-struck, she breaks her momentary freeze to stash mask and phone to safety and...

"Una? Can you get it back?!" There's the blanket, she could do something, she's got to do something --

-- but what leaps to mind is tossing the coffee. Her coffee, everyone's coffee: smack that fire.

Una ought to, by rights, panic right about now: she ought to positively freak out, given her fire is what is causing this problem. It's all her fault, and don't think for a moment that that isn't going to weigh on her... later. Her squeal is one of horror, but Della's question focuses her attention just as much as Jules' hand did, just moments before.

She squares her shoulders (and her jaw), and reaches with her power, with everything she's got: to dampen the flames, if she possibly can, before any further damage is done.

Even so: "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so so sorry."

Jules’, “Don’t stain anything!” is somewhat inane given what’s happening, but there it is.

Though that thing tries to coax the flames to spread and claw towards the furniture, the fire heeds Una, and not it. The flames quickly die, snuffed like a candle, leaving the carpet a charred ashy mess. Bill beats at it a few more times for good measure, just in case the malicious presence manages to make a spot flare up again.

Its laughter contains one last message. This is only the beginning.

“Setting the world on fire,” whispers Jules as it fades back to wherever it came from.

The air smells of ozone. The mask shows the Veil’s rips, this room’s shadow counterpart, burned to a husk.

And Della reports exactly that, once she's gotten the mask back on, once the creature appears far enough gone to risk making sure it's the rest of the way gone. (Nor is she risking awful footprints on the carpet; wisely or unwisely, she's trusting the mask to see through obstacles and she stays where she is.)

"What was that?!" and, What does that even mean, that it's all burned up on the other side?" And, "Which volcano would've blown up, exactly?"

At least her hiccups have gone, though she's fishing out a kleenex to sneeze.

Una's face is ashen, and not with what the fire's left behind— not physically, anyway.

"I'm so sorry," she says, turning to Bill, a sob almost-audible in her voice. "I'm so so sorry. I didn't—"

Bill makes a short, negating gesture, chopping the air with his hand. “This is not your fault,” he tells Una, addressing her guilt before anything else. “Nothing irreplaceable has been lost. And it is better to know our enemy.”

He lets out a sigh and turns, surveying the damage. The net is cinders, but the floats are intact enough (charred, blackened wood; he doesn’t use plastic, and it’s heavy metal for the sinks) for him to read it for residue. Bill crosses and squats in the ashes to do just that, cradling one bauble with intent. “Look at it through the mask,” he instructs Della. “Tell is what you see.”

Rivers of mud, fast-flowing lahars sweeping debris as big as trees down slopes, tumbling cars away, dumping into once-clean bodies of water. Nets full of sticks, plastic bottles, and already-dead fish.

“The Olympics aren’t volcanic,” Jules notes meanwhile, frowning hard. “Only the Cascades. Rainier would be the big one to blow, but all we’d get out here is ash. But if there’s a big quake, like when the Ghost Forest got sunk—“

Della sinks back to her heels; she doesn't go to Una -- see: footprints -- but she nods, underscoring what Bill says... now that he's said it. For Jules, while she's still futzing with the mask, "All I saw was ash, not lava. So that would make sense. Not like -- " she doesn't have to say Pompeii, does she?

And now she follows Bill's direction, her voice low and clear, her emotional affect purposely flat. "Mudslides," she reports. "Pollution on a huge scale. Swoosh, down it all goes."

"Avalanche." That's calm too, but for how she's hugging herself one-armed, very still, a shiver in stasis. More purely human: "How does that work? What you found, what we're seeing?"

The chop of Bill's hand does a little to ease Una's guilt, but her gaze is following his, and the damage— well. It may take a little longer for her to truly ease her conscience on that front. She stays where she is, hugging her arms around herself (where did her coffee go? It must be here somewhere, and since it hasn't spilled, she's either put it down deliberately, or floated it somewhere safe quite without noticing).

The comments of both Jules and Della don't much help her state of mind, however, the ashiness of her complexion only further emphasised in her disquiet. "It really is going to destroy everything if it can, isn't it? We can't let it. We can't."

“Even a brief touch will leave something when it’s as potent as this was,” Bill tells Della, standing and offering her the float. “Arguably, every touch leaves its memory, and we tend to only see the outer layers, those things that are strongest. With time and practice, you can start to peel them back and sense softer encounters.”

He doesn’t directly answer the question about what he sees. Now, the question is what Della sees. In the meantime, Bill focuses on Una, Una with the misplaced blame.

“It’s a child of destruction,” he says. “Born from our own destructiveness. It can’t help what it is or what it wants. One of our Teachings is that these things—what you might call evil spirits—are called forth by the actions or inactions of the People. We are responsible for them. They’re a sign that we’ve neglected our responsibilities to the land and sea and sky. Is it really so surprising that one would appear at the time, when our oceans are turning to acid and our forests clear cut for timber? How can we stop the spirit when we cannot stop ourselves?”

"Thank you," says Della, after a little pause. She rearranges her things before she can accept the float two-handed, careful, careful, as if it were glass. As she does, wryly, "I'm assuming nobody wants to share this." They can speak up if they do. Leaning against the couch for added support, she reaches --

Softer, "That's fascinating." It could be the float; it could be what Bill has to say. Either way, she's softened the wariness too, turning the ball in her hands, rolling the char off onto her palms and fingers: soothing it, as if to say that it's safe now, as much as it can be. It lives with humans again.

Dark eyes lift to Bill, to Una, more briefly Jules; then they refocus as she sinks deeper.

As it happens, Bill's explanation does not do much to soothe Una's frame of mind either: oh look, something else to feel guilty about, misplaced white guilt and all. She shudders perceptibly, but gives a little unhappy nod.

Her swallow is a thick one; the drawing back of her shoulders sharp and uncomfortable. "So we're fucked," she concludes. "Because we have no self-control, and just keep letting things get worse and worse."

“Hell no,” Jules mutters to Della. No more sharing, thanks.

“Did I say that?” Bill’s response is just a little sharp. “Is that our response to all the destruction we’ve caused—to sit back, say oh well, and wring our hands while the governments do too little, too late?” He frowns at Una, regarding her intently. It’s not an easy stare, though there’s sympathy in it. Just not enough to let her off the hook. “You’re a mender, aren’t you? You should know that’s not the answer better than anyone.”

Della doesn't look the mutterer's way, though her mouth curls up briefly. There's the float; there's Bill -- Bill-and-Una, now.

There's the float.

There's... not its story, but the story that has been laid upon it, ripped into it, gouged. She leans back. "Ragnarok." That foreign word, made commonplace by comics-born movies: she says it out loud, heedless of whether it goes heard or unheard. It doesn't matter. There's a line of soot at the edges of her fingernails, now, where they lose their bright color and disappear into her skin.

"It's upset," she reports. "It -- no, it grieves; it laments. When you're so sad and mad that you want to yell and Hulk-smash and break everything down. Start over. Those cookies have to go in the trash." She lifts the mask to look at it, now, to add those senses to hers.

Bill's response is sharp enough to make Una pause, but not enough to fully draw her out of her cycle of self-pity and despair. She opens her mouth, ready to argue the point— but falls short, because Della has spoken again, and her utterance of that word really has drawn the redhead's attention: Ragnarok.

This time, she sucks in a deep breath and listens, drawing herself up with a sharpness of her own; she is, after all, a mender— just like Bill said. And as helpless as she feels, right now, maybe, just maybe...

"That's awful," she says. And (and here it comes): "We have to fix it. But not with fire."

Fire, as they have established, fixes absolutely nothing.

“It didn’t seem sad to me when it was fucking around with me,” grumps Jules, not fully believing. She casts her gaze around the room as if looking for something she can use. A weapon, maybe. A few short strides take her across the room, then back again.

Bill looks at her in amusement. “You’re a mover,” he determines, much like he addressed Una a few seconds prior. “You can’t stay still.”

Jules pauses to look at him. “Yeah? What of it?”

Now his words encompass all three. “A seer, a mender, a mover. The three of you show up at my door. You balance each other, like earth, sea, and sky. Any fixing—any solution—must be a restoration of balance. It will take all three of you.”

Now he looks at Una again, gaze lingering on her, reading her. << You think you are not necessary, >> he observes, having the grace to address her alone, even if it is in this unfamiliar way. << But they can do nothing without you. Sometimes, mending is quiet, constant work that goes on in the background behind the bigger, flashier activities. And sometimes it comes into the center, and everyone sees it for what it is—the heart of everything. You can knit things together or pull things apart. Everything in this world is in relationship, and this is your gift—you can see it, weave it into stronger bonds and encourage its growth or prune away what has lost its proportion. The elders teach us that this is the only thing that can truly touch the spirit that was just here. >>

As for the mask: it shows the nets and their floats, this float, abandoned alongside the bay. The only fishing boats that remain are carcasses, limping along, remnants of a near past. The docks have fallen into the water, for the coastal shelf and the land have shifted.

It doesn’t end there, though. A hazy figure appears, tending those nets, gently weaving them back together for a day when the fish will repopulate and return.

And then a glimmer, out at sea. A patch of a different ocean, brighter and bluer than this slate-grey surface. A Door?

Better. So much better. And there's a glimmer for the rest of them too, a glimmer of hope, for all that Jules had refused the rest of it -- it's subtle, but it's there.

Della lifts her head, mask still held to her face, only now she's looking at them and what it shows of their emotions; "'Seer' corresponds with earth?" isn't exactly disappointed, but it isn't entirely buy-in. Not like, "The three of us together, I can go with that. With obvious elements of 'why us,' or maybe just, 'there have got to be other teams out there as well.'" And since things sound quiet, she adds, "Una, when we get back, if we still get to use this," she pets the mask, good mask, before glancing at Bill, "Would you please help me make a headdress for it, some safety gear?"

The vision? She keeps it in her head for the moment and, slipping the bag cross-body, picks her way towards the remaining floats and the interwoven cinders. Footprints or no footprints. The poor carpet. Her poor boots.

Jules' reaction makes Una... not smile, not given the state of mind she's in, but there's the hint of it: an expression that could one day blossom properly into a smile, but for now contains only the ungerminated seeds. Bill's assessment of her continues that trend, the redhead's expression inscrutable except for that faintest hint of satisfaction, lurking deep.

But both hands clasp behind her back, clinging to each other, as he continues, and under the weight of his gaze, she positively freezes: it must surely be obvious that there's some kind of communication going on there, given the wideness of her eyes and the slight parting of her lips.

<< I... >> she begins, by way of reply. Her cheeks have flushed, both embarrassed by his assessment of her insecurities, and equally by the bulk of what he has to say: what it means. Her shoulders draw back again, though, and some of the stiffness dissolves into something less trapped and more... focused, somehow.

<< I'll try, >> is a quiet promise.

Della's comments draw her back, though she chooses not to claim any element in particular. "Of course. I'd be happy to."

She sounds quietly pleased. Purposeful.

Bill regards Una a moment longer, then dips his chin in a nod, a recognition, with a small smile. He releases her from that intense focus to tell Della with a chuckle, “I didn’t mean to imply correspondences like that—but if I were going to, I’d say it’s the menders who are most attuned to the earth.”

He doesn’t answer the ‘why us.’ Maybe he doesn’t have one.

“What do you mean by safety gear?” Jules wants to know, following Della towards the door and angling for another look at the mask. “Just don’t drill a bunch of holes in it or something. It already has a hole on each side of you want to string something through it to keep it on.”

“Before you go,” Bill interposes then, “Come to the kitchen with me.” It’s clear he means Una; that’s who his gaze is fixed on.

"That makes more sense," remarks Della with a nod; if she's speculating, it isn't out loud. Her glance does swing to their local mender, but then --

"No, Jules, no drilling holes. I did see those two, yes. No holes, no staples, no glue. But we can do better, figure out something more stable. Maybe a case for the edges where something can be attached to that, suede or netting... Help me." She beckons with her chin before she drops to a crouch, to roll the remaining floats to the side so they're out of the way, and also so she can sense if they all correspond to the one she's got. "Look for any bits of netting that might have made it."

With all the searching she's doing, lines of strain have begun to tighten her mouth, around her eyes.

"By that logic, I'd say... seers are air, and movers water," concludes Una, brushing imaginary dust and dirt— or is it ash?— from her hands onto the seat of her jeans. She hesitates, chin lifted to acknowledge Bill's request, though there's some sense of uncertainty, as if she's unsure whether she ought to leave Della-and-Jules (and maybe, in particular, Della: don't think she's not noted those lines of strain).

But her comment is mild, a very quiet, "Don't try too hard, Della," before she turns back to Bill, gathering up mugs to give her hands purpose before following him in to the kitchen.

“You’re going to give yourself a headache, or worse,” Jules notes, watching Della. Her own lines of concern appear as her mouth pulls into a frown. She hunkers down beside the other woman, but at least half her attention’s on Della and not making good on the request.

The remnants of the net, floats and sinks distributed among the ash, carry the same sets of resonance, though the metal bits lack the handmade purposefulness of their neighbors. The calm patience of work at sea. Pride for the work of one’s hands. And anxiety over the dwindling catch. The spirit taint swirls through this last feeling, feeding on loss.

In the kitchen, Bill sorts through the glass jars and small woven baskets that clutter his countertops, selecting and rejecting. A small collection grows before him, and once he’s satisfied, he turns to look at Una, silently bidding her to step close and pay attention.

“I keep knowledge alive for our people,” he tells her quietly. “Our stories and our ways. They go together. The stories teach us how to live.” Bill picks up a cylinder of tightly bound green needles a few inches long. “The Creator gave us the red cedar to provide for our lives. Grandmother Cedar, the Tree of Life—she’s the elder sister of arborvitae. It would take weeks to show you all the uses for the cedar. An entire apprenticeship. But I can explain one or two ways cedar helps us now that may be helpful for you. This is a collection of the leaf,” he says with a short downward gesture of the bundle. “You always ask permission and give thanks when you gather it. Listen carefully, observe the tree and her surroundings, and she’ll tell you if she accepts your request. A bundle like this, if gathered appropriately, can cleanse. When it’s fresh and green, it will smoke. Use it for protection against the spirit that came today, for you and the places it seeks to gain footholds.”

The smoke-bundle is set down, and he picks up a strip of cedar bark. “If you set this alight, you can carry fire with you,” Bill tells her. “Shape it into a bowl. Because it’s evergreen, it will burn slowly and hold the fire for you. It may choose to aid you if you need to use that fire.”

Lastly, a dried flower head, an upside down umbrella with small brown seed pods, held in a small glass vial. “This is the head of the ayepaws plant. Yampah. The roots are an important source of food. Knock the seeds on the ground as a ceremonial offering before you begin trying to heal and cultivate the land. It needs moist ground and sunlight—it’s a meadow plant. Ayepaws takes time to take root, and it hides among other grasses until it flowers. It’s like much of the work of mending, that way—slow and steady, not readily visible in most seasons, maybe for years at a time. These days, we are trying to rehabilitate the land with ayepaws. It needs us to flourish, just like we need it.”

Bill gifts Una a rare smile along with this small treasure trove, stepping back from the counter and ceding the space to her. “Use these things with respect, learn to identify them and care for them, and they’ll care for you in turn. I hope they may help you in the days ahead.”

Della does glance over her shoulder, Una's way; she tips her head but, well, makes no promises. To Jules (who also doesn't get a real answer), distractedly, "I wonder if seers are actually water, scrying pools and all that -- " she pronounces it with two syllables, see-ers -- "and movers make things light like air... though she's right: water, especially saltwater, does let wood float." Floats like these. She goes through them quickly, cataloguing, and when she does find some bits of net, she sets them aside.

Perhaps, if it weren't for the spirit-worsened anxiety, all this wouldn't wear on her the way it does. The mask helps, but... "Part of me wants to see if I can polish the creature-touch out," here, now, even if there's still going to be that drive back, "but with the little trinkets for Mikaere," the ones she's generally run by Jules, "it's easier to get rid of the extra stuff that just happens. This is different, it's meant." Dark eyes search out her housemate's. "If they aren't erased, maybe we can use one to track it. Or make it into a warning sign. Or... if we take it with us, maybe it can track us. Maybe it can already. I don't know."

Once in the kitchen, and as she waits for Bill to finish with his jars and baskets, there's nothing for Una to do with her hands: she fiddles with them, instead, fingers twisting around and around each other. She doesn't seem uncomfortable, per se, or at least, not in the sense of 'naughty child in the principal's office'; rather, she's deeply uncertain, despite an obvious interest in the contents of those baskets and jars.

On cue, she steps forward, hands still clasped behind her back but stilling, now: hands holding each other. Her eyes go wide, expression a study of intensity and concentration, tongue sweeping her lip before it gets chased away by the press of teeth instead. "The needles for smoke," she repeats. "For protection. And the bark to hold fire, and the— ayepaws?" It's an unfamiliar word, and she tests it carefully. "For when we... so I shouldn't try and grow it quickly? It needs the time, and not the... cheat of my gifts?"

The question bursts out, and is followed hurriedly by, "Thank you. For... entrusting me with this. I'll do my best, I promise."

“Don’t do it now,” Jules urges, concern inflecting her voice. “You need to rest before it’s all too much for you. I don’t want it to come for you when you’re vulnerable, make you see things. Bad things.” She touches one of the baubles, though she feels nothing from it. “I don’t know either. I don’t know if there’s any right answer.”

Bill, meanwhile, smiles at Una’s question. “Ayepaws, yampah in English, Y-A-M-P-A-H, if you want to look it up. A little helping to get it started won’t hurt anything. The main thing is your intent, your respect, and listening to the world around you. Maintaining the balance. And you have any questions, you have my number.”

Della's eyes widen, she begins to reach, as though to warn Jules from the fire -- but then she exhales and subsides. Nods. "I'll ask him, then, when they get back. In the meantime..."

"There's a lot to clean up." She stashes the mask (after petting it again: good mask, yes), and starts in.

Una's smile is shy, but pleased. One hand reaches out to brush over the objects, not to seek resonances the way Della might, but to feel— even if it is only in her own head— the simple, earth-bound power inherent within them. "Yampah," she repeats. "Yampah. Thank you. Intent, respect and listening... those are all things that I can do."

She'll tuck them away, her little treasure trove, and then, chin lifted, determination gathered like a cloak about her shoulders, nods in Bill's direction: this is a more silent thanks, but no less fervent for it.

"Can I repair anything for you? I... think I could do it. If you wanted."

“Yeah,” Jules sighs in agreement, standing as she says, “I’ll go see if there’s a broom.”

But perhaps they won’t need one, or at least not to the extent, given Una’s offer. “If you can see a way to restore the carpet, you’d be saving me a lot of work,” says Bill, not without some ruefulness.

"Good idea."

Della keeps her head down, sorting, her bag with the mask braced against one hip; it must be so tempting to keep it on, to scan the entire room, the house just as far as she can see -- more than she has had time for already, anyway -- but instead she just works at keeping like things together, staying mostly within the destruction zone.

If anything speaks to her, that's its business.

Una's got ruefulness of her own, though at least it isn't the utter guilt-and-dismay of earlier. She acknowledges Bill with a twist of her mouth, and murmurs, "Well, I'll try at least," before she turns to return to the others— and to the carpet.

She doesn't tell them what she's doing, just moves to a crouch in front of it, her hand pressed flat to the woven surface. Her eyes close.

She's not projecting her thoughts, but if she were, they'd be so very clear: come on, carpet. You know what you were. Let's go back to that. Let's tug you back into place, as good as new. Just like you were. Come on. Please?

There are things that sing in this house, soft lilting songs of the sea and the fog wrapping through the evergreens, but like the mist that enshrouds this land, it won’t lift unless Della’s close enough to stretch out her hands and touch. The metal tackle box, which has escaped unscathed, speaks of patience. A solitude in which one is never really alone.

Under Una’s touch, the charred fibers begin to knit themselves back together, to wholeness. Flecks of ash draw together, binding themselves into the weave. The carpet was threadbare to begin with, and it’s patchier still after the fire has had its way, but it’s no longer a blackened mess.

Bill smiles in satisfaction. “We never completely get rid of the effects of destructiveness once it’s appeared,” he says. “Whether it’s in human behavior or the environments we live in. Not without erasing an entire history—at which point, I tend to think the entirety of that loss is more than what’s gained. But we can bring healing, nurture the better parts of our histories, and build on them.” Perhaps this answers some of Della’s unspoken questions, too.

Della -- attending to what she's doing and, yes, to the tackle box that she lifts to move out of the way (since she listens to the songs but she's working, not tracking them down) -- yips as the carpet moves beneath her feet; she all but levitates as though fearing she'd be caught up in it, hopping onto the back of the couch and staring. At the floor, first. At the others -- no, Una. "What what what?!"

"Una?!"

Bill said something, didn't he. It'll sink in. But first, "Was that you?"

Una doesn't look up, not in reply to Della's exclamation (or her somewhat theatrical escape), and not in reply to Bill's comments, either, though she's surely paying attention.

Some attention, anyway: she's intensely focused on what she's doing, what she's done, and the smile curving about her mouth? That's undeniable satisfaction of her own.

She smooths her hand over the patchy carpet and gives one final, satisfied nod, then turns back. "I like repairing better than making brand new," she admits. "As a concept. Like those... the gold... kintsugi."

It's only now that she glances at Della, giving her a shy smile and a little shrug.

Bill just shakes his head and tilts his chin towards Una there in the crouch. “It’s Una,” Jules tells Della, abandoning her quest for the broom and just watching in admiration; she’s not caught off guard in the same way, facing the right way when Una gets to work. “Mending.”

Bill, tucking his thumbs into his belt loops, rocks back on his heels. “The Japanese art. Mending with gold,” he recognizes. “It’s more than just art, isn’t it? It’s a philosophy.”

With it confirmed, Della's pursed her lips, concentrating -- does the carpet look any different now, how is it different now, to her other senses? (Not that that's any less theatrical, given how that concentrates the red of her lips, but at least her feet are a-dangle and not tracking smut onto the couch.)

"'Visible mending,'" said with those 'a la Instagram' quotes. "Nice job." The more so since the carpet's owner seems pleased.

"...Have you been doing your jeans like this all along? But no; I've seen you with a needle, but that doesn't mean you can't have sped it up -- "

"Reduce, reuse, recycle... remake," murmurs Una, pleased with herself. "It is a philosophy," she adds, glancing at Bill as she draws herself back to her feet. "All of our experiences leave an impression. Why would we want to wash them away?"

Della's comments get a grin of their own, those hands clasping each other behind her back now. "No, I didn't know I could do this, until today. It just... clicked into place. I think I'll still use a needle for my clothes, though. Some things... you shouldn't always cheat."

And magic— their abilities— is a kind of cheating, sometimes.

“Nice,” says Jules, impressed. More than that—pleased for Una’s sake, for how their friend is pleased with herself, too. “I’d ask you to fix my car,” she chatters on, “but something tells me it’s time for that thing to die and stay dead. Probably give you one hell of a time afterwards, too. Like everything you touch would break, and we can’t risk the kitchen.”

Bill has a spare smile for these remarks, as lighthearted as Jules may mean them. “The world exacts a toll,” he agrees, “to keep it all in balance.”

Why would they want to wash them away? Della doesn't volunteer any sort of answer, only gives a wry, side-tilted smile.

Before anything else, "What is it likely to exact -- extract -- for this?"

For a moment, there's a look of horror on Una's face, focused on Jules: her kitchen! But it disappears as quickly as it arrived, as she draws back her shoulders, pats her hands 'clean' on her jeans, and says instead, "I like that: balance. I don't—"

She takes half a step forward, and then stops; staggers a little, then makes a face. "My muscles feel all goopy. Like I... ran a marathon or something. I guess that's telling me something."

“Depends on you,” Bill tells Della, followed by a tilt of his head and a look of sympathy for Una. “It hits different people differently, though it’s generally echoes of what you’ve been doing. It’s like ripples in a pond—as you interact with the world beyond the material world, you create motion. The more motion you make, the more likely it is to bump against something else and reverberate back to you.”

“Good thing you’re not driving,” Jules says. “Maybe you can just sleep on the way back. And you,” this to Della, “had better let me drive. Last thing we need is you suddenly seeing a landslide, swerving to avoid it, and us going off the road.” Her voice is tight.

'Goopy' earns a sympathetic, fond look from Della; her lips purse, then, as she takes in what Bill has to say. And what Jules does -- "Or more coffee," she negotiates for the sake of her car, her baby.

"But speaking of seeing things," she's straightened, now, though her feet still dangle; with her carriage, her cadence, she might as well be relating information from her worktable. Or a boardroom. "One thing I did see, earlier, had to do with someone knotting the nets back together. The docks were gone, there were only a few boats and those were broken, but whoever-it-was was repairing them anyway. There was a little netting left from the fire," did she drop it on the coffee table in her rush? "and I wondered if you could regrow it, Una. Not now, but sometime.

"The sky was gray, the water was gray, but then things brightened. Not at shore, but out at sea, as though someone had parted the clouds right there to let the sun shine brightly... but it half-felt like more than that, a glimpse of Elsewhere." There's a tinge of what someone else (someone not living in their house) might call 'Heaven.' More practically, "Like selecting part of a picture and upping both saturation and contrast. I don't know what it means, but at least it didn't seem like even more doom.

"And, Bill? Don't let me forget: there's that one other -- memento -- to run by you before we go." If that gives time for coffee to work, so much the better.

With wobbly legs, and a rueful (if still pleased) smile, Una sinks carefully back into her seat from earlier, wrapping her arms about herself. "A nap, yes," she agrees. "I'll do that." She doesn't have comment on who should do the driving, though her gaze slides from Jules, past Bill, and back to Della. It's a good thing, too, because that housemate has more to say, and it leaves the redhead's mouth drawing just slightly open.

"Maybe," is probably an answer to the question, but the truth is that she's distracted by the rest of it: eyes wide, expression the very study of thoughtfulness.

"Hope," is what she concludes, though it's not much more than a breath: a whisper of something.

“I’m not really asking,” Jules says flatly, chin lifted at a just-try-me angle. “It’s not about being awake. It’s about whether you’ve overextended yourself to the point where you start hallucinating.”

Don’t look at Bill, he’s staying out of this one.

“Whenever you’re ready,” is what he does say, mild.

"I don't recall having hallucinated," Della observes just as mildly. She moves on, on to Una. "Hope. Yes. I do hope," with a tiny, quirky smile for her other friend. "It's odd that the blue wasn't where the person mending the nets was," slight lean on that verb, "so maybe the blue wasn't caused by the mending? If there weren't the mender, I'd wonder if the blue were a place to go, like in the book we read. As it is... maybe the person came through from the blue to help?"

Back to Bill -- who can chime in any time he wants for the rest of it -- "Tell you what: let me help you with the dishes, with anything else of the mess you'd like -- with coffee or something else fortifying if you'd spare it, and then we can get to it." Evidently asking Una for her special help isn't in the cards. "I am sorry for the spill."

Don't look at Una, either: she's just going to sit there, and aside from a twitch of a smile for Della in reply to that quirkier one, seems disinclined to get involved in anything.

"The blue," she murmurs. And then differently: "The Blue."

Sometimes capitalisation matters.

“Jesus, Della.” Jules doesn’t quite explode, but the exasperation is all too clear. “Don’t be so goddamn cavalier.” Big words for Jules. “If I’d been moving shit around with my mind, I’d ask you to drive. There’s a first time for everything, and I’m calling DD. Do I have to remind you that my mom basically went crazy from the consequences of overuse? She saw things and heard voices all the damn time. I’m not joking around.”

Bill heads for the kitchen while the women work it out, saying, “I can make more coffee.” Perhaps Una can see the faint twitch of a smile as he passes her by.

Della stares after Bill, the quisling. This time, she doesn't thank him.

To Jules: "I'm not your mother."

It's hard to catch smiles when you're studying your toes and pretending you're somewhere else, but maybe Una picks up something anyway: those brown eyes of her do follow Bill's feet towards the kitchen, even if she's steadfast in keeping them lowered and away from the action.

And then, in a voice that is steadier than it ought to be, given givens, she says: "Can we not? Please?"

“Obviously—but that doesn’t change the fact that friends don’t let friends drive—“ Demented? Debilitated? “—when they’re overextended.”

Una’s plea receives her own exasperation. “You gonna help me out here?”

The abandoned mugs -- some empty from her coffee-tossing earlier, but not all -- clink as Della piles them together; they're just the beginning. She gives Una a long look, Jules a briefer glance, but doesn't say anything right away. She's tidying.

(Taking a deep breath, too.)

When she does speak, her voice is quiet but firm, and there are a whole lot of things she doesn't say. Instead, with some gentleness -- that's it, gentle but firm, that's what we're going for here -- "Jules. It's okay. The coffee -- and a big glass of water sounds like a good idea, too," here a look at Una, "they're just to stabilize things so I can reassess from there. I'm planning to not drive if I still feel wonky. I don't want to risk us."

Una has that rabbit-in-the-headlights look on her face when Jules' exasperation reaches her, and it diminishes only slightly when Della— calm, gentle-but-firm! Della— wades back in.

"Okay," she says. "We'll assess. Eat a cookie. No one's going to risk anything."

“You could have said that to begin with,” Jules mutters, still mulish but starting to relent.

Coffee is pre-ground in this house, which means it’s an easy task to get another pot started: just scoop and dump and press the button on Mr. Coffee. Bill stays quiet, stays out of the way of the women sorting themselves out, and busies himself otherwise. “Can also do tea,” he volunteers. “One of my own blends. Not a tea, technically, no tea leaves, and not caffeinated, though I still consider it invigorating. Good for body and soul.”

"Cookies are good," Della agrees gravely, and leaves it all at that.

Though once Bill sees fit to return -- don't think she didn't notice his timing, though at least there's some amusement in the slight hook of her mouth -- "I would be delighted to try it," she enthuses. (Well, as much as one can enthuse while noticing such things and while not being fake; it's a little deadpan, really.)

Until then? Still sorting. The physical disarray, anyway: next is delivering the scraps of netting to Una, in the wake of their owner's lack of objection.

"Coffee for me," says Una, lifting her gaze more firmly towards Bill: he gets her full-and-stable attention, even if she's still a little inclined to shy away from her housemates and their potential for conflict. "Thank you."

Thank you. Clearly it's for more than the coffee, though the full implication may be more than that again— maybe.

Her fingers drop towards the netting, but there's no outlay of power, there: just fingers touching physical objects, brushing over the roughness of the weave. "We won't take up too much more of your time, I hope."

“Go ahead and pour for yourself when it’s ready,” Bill tells Una while he goes about boiling water on the stove and getting the infusion ready.

Jules opts for the latter, too, drawn by her curiosity. “What’s in it?”

“Oh, this and that,” Bill says, casually denying her his trade secrets. None of his jars are labeled. “And you’re not taking up my time. This is what I’m here for.”

The tea’s fragrance is woodsy, with a berry undertone. “This should steep ten minutes. Can’t rush it.”

Things do not rush in this house, abiding by their own time.

Della, listening from further away, doesn't bounce on her toes -- her dark-smudged toes! -- or anything. She really, really doesn't. Instead, she calls over, "I'll just go wash my hands," with every intention of finding the bathroom (and peeking around, because why not, as long as doors are open to her) and doing just that.

Again: "Thank you," says Una, though she's sniffing the air with obvious interest at the makings of this tea, cataloguing scents (likely without huge amounts of success). She's stepped up from her chair, now, all the better to linger about the kitchen with her hands once again tucked behind her back. Della can go and wash her hands; Una's just going to stay here.

Curiously; "What do you do, other than this?"

The bathroom is just down the hall, and as bathrooms go, it’s pretty standard. Worn cream towels. Only one toothbrush in the holder. The cat from earlier scoots in through the open door and leaps onto the back of the toilet, like she wants to get closer to eye level.

Cedar provides the sharp tang, and that’s easy enough to identify, especially given Una’s gifts. The rest of it, though, not so much.

“I’m a psychologist,” Bill answers, wiping his hands on the legs of his jeans and leaning back against the counter to wait. “I mostly work with teens, out of the tribal health services here. That’s my day job, but people come to me with all sorts of things. I’m on the tribal council, and more informally, I’m someone who holds onto tribal memory. We look to the wisdom of our ancestors to guide us in our present.”

Jules is nodding faintly, likely without realizing it; it’s the sort of thing she’s heard plenty of times.

"Hello, cat," Della greets gravely. Hello, cat, much the way she might greet one of their own.

And because one never knows -- does it look anything like 'Thena about the eyes? -- "I'm going to wash my hands now, because they smell," she says out loud; she offers not a fingertip but a knuckle, not close at all, such that the cat would have to reach out and sniff if it actively wants to. If the cat doesn't do anything too exciting... then will come the handwashing, followed by the next, wryer explanation that yes, she's also going to use the restroom for its intended purpose, which will involve shutting the door, indeed it will.

(What she'll also do is attempt to draw her psychometry into gloves-slash-bodysuit, as she's practiced after her work with Mikaere: much like hiking out in the woods, let's leave no trace, shall we?

Cedar. That's one thing identified, and though she says nothing of it, there's a hint of pleasure in her expression for that.

It's there, too, in her response to Bill's answer: pleased, and perhaps more specifically: not surprised. "That's a useful thing to have," she supposes. "Useful person, rather. An important thing. All of it: the tribal memory, the person who can solve problems and provide answers, or at least nudge people in the right direction to find their own. And, of course, the psychology bits."

Hello, says the cat in its own unique way, by stretching out its neck to sniff, then turning its head at an angle and butting against Della’s knuckle with a purr. Satisfied, the tomcat watches her from his perch, tail swinging back and forth a couple times, before jumping down and leaving Della to her devices. Kind of. She won’t be alone when she returns to the kitchen.

“It’s rooted in a different way of living,” Bill notes, briefly looking at Jules to draw her into the conversation. Stewardship of both the past and the future.”

Here Jules does pipe up. “My grandmother always says knowing the ancestors means knowing ourselves and providing for our children’s children’s children. She calls it the rule of sevens. Seven generations back and seven generations forward.”

What a relief when Della's done, when she's clean, when she can strip those confining mental gloves back off. Lipstick reapplied, she keeps her companion company back to the kitchen, to the people.

(What a relief, too, it had been to be in that little room without anyone, without anyone's eyes.)

"And... back. Want help with anything, Bill?" Did he ask them to call him by his first name, or did she just follow along when others did? By rights he could have been Mister.

"Oh, I like that: seven generations back and seven generations forward." Una's tone is reflective as she repeats that, though her nod is sharp and determined: it's not hard to imagine that she's thinking about her own ancestors. "Community's important, though. I think we're coming to understand that again— I think it got forgotten, a little? But. Maybe we can change that."

“Thought you would,” Jules says to Una with a faint smile. “It’s part of the ethos that you leave a place better than when you found it. I think Grandma has some pretty strong opinions on Gray Harbor, if you ask her.”

Bill (and it’s just Bill; he wouldn’t stand for the formality of a Mister) shakes his head at Della’s question. “No; this’ll just be a minute more.” He’s already gotten fresh mugs down, plus a strainer. He pours the infusion from the teapot when he deems it ready, then nods for them to pick theirs up. The brew’s bitterness is tempered by the berries that are in the mix, though Bill also sets out honey for added sweetness.

“Now, tell me about this thing you’d like me to look at.”

"I'm all for that," Della murmurs about that ethos; she's patient through the waiting -- it must help that it's such a short time! -- and warms her hands around the mug rather than immediately drinking (or, rather, what she drinks in is its aroma). As it cools --

"It's one of my Dream-mementos: from walking in a Dream, and bringing something back. But unlike the others -- even most of the Doors, did you experience those here, where people walked here and there and everywhere? -- this kept its feel. When I look at it with the mask, it..." the illustrative movement of her finger hints at its disorientation.

As a side note, "I've sought to keep looking at things without the mask first, still, not relying on it while it's with us. I hope it always shows the truth." Good mask; she pats the bag she still wears. But, "This -- it's also a piece of a mask, the mask of the bird that was hunting us -- feels like I need to take it seriously, and I'd like your advice."

Una chews on her lip rather than answer Jules, as though that comment about her grandmother has left her with food for thought— and perhaps not the happy kind. But she distracts herself from it, making herself busy in lieu of response: she pours coffee for herself, and wraps both hands around it, settling back down so that she can listen to Della and her explanatory note.

Bill listens intently over his own small portion of his homemade brew, face settling into the non-expressive intentness of someone who listens for a living—giving little away, but empathetic, not off-putting. He shakes his head when Della asks her question, but doesn’t interrupt, letting her tell it in full.

“Smart to take it seriously,” he says first when she finishes. “Even something broken can still be powerful. I’d like to hear more of these Doors of yours, but first—may I?”

Jules settles in next to Una, making a little face at the first sip of her drink, although it’s more one of faint surprise than displeasure. “You want to try it, don’t you?” she asks in an undertone, offering a sip from her mug.

"Una experienced more Doors than either of us," Della notes, the 'I think' implicit in her tone and the lift of the brows toward her housemates. "And, yes."

She finally takes a sip of the drink, tilts her head, and has another before setting the mug down in favor of going through her bag and -- carefully, carefully -- drawing the fragment out. And, even more carefully, handing it over.

Watching the other pair yields a wry little half-smile. "Before any honey," she half-guesses, half-suggests.

Does Una want to try? Does the Pope sh— wait, wrong phrase. She gives Jules a wry little smile, then sets down her coffee so that she can accept the mug on offer, and take a sip of it for herself, testing out the flavour on her tongue more out of scientific interest than focus on the taste. Cedar, yes— but anything else?

"Honey is for wusses," she says, jokingly, except she's belatedly recognised that her name was said and adds, "The Doors, yes. I don't mind talking about the Doors. After—" a nod of acknowledgement.

There’s some kind of berry in the blend—dark and sweet, not too tart, as a natural balance to the bitterness. Some other kinds of herbs (Fenugreek? Fennel?) and something less identifiable, something foraged instead of purchased from a grocery store spice rack.

Bill handles the mask fragment with care, turning it over in his hands and looking at it with practiced attention before he flexes his power to look at it in a different light.

“It isn’t very friendly, is it,” he says quietly. “Which isn’t its fault. It’s just what it is. It’s like the masks you put on in ceremony—it’ll give you strength, expand your own power, but at a price. You could call it possession, but it’s more the toll the spirit exacts for you to access its power. Use it carefully. Decide when it’s worth the cost.”

Listening, Della drinks again, more deeply; though she chooses to reach for the honey, it's just a little, leaving a little of that on her spoon rather than stirring and stirring so that she can isolate the flavors. (Is it from a plastic bottle in the shape of a bear? Hand-scrawled preciousness from bees raised on poetry? Both?)

"Mmm," she says finally. "Do you have any idea of what kind of toll? What level of power? I am... most likely to keep it and keep it 'in case,' and as much as I don't want to use it as a flyswatter, I don't want to leave it to too late."

Una finds some amount of satisfaction in identifying at least parts of the flavours in the tea, though so much still eludes her; it makes her smile, even so, handing the mug back to Jules so that she can reclaim her own. (Are there tea blends from Una's garden in their future? Perhaps.)

"'At a price'," she murmurs, her contribution to the conversation at hand, and an indication that, tea distractions aside, she's certainly listening.

"Will you know, when the right moment is? People often do, in stories."

But Bill just shrugs. His half-smile for Una’s comparison neither confirms nor denies. “It’s for you to decide when it’s important enough for you. As for the toll it takes, my best guess is that the spirit world will reach out, and it won’t be pleasant. Maybe the kind of hallucination you mentioned,” he says with a nod for Jules. “Maybe the spirit will come find you again.” The Huk-Huk’s death in the Dream isn’t a true death, apparently.

Della exhales. Silently. Perceptibly.

"Lovely," she says at last. She spares a quarter-smile for Una that, while less than Bill's, is openly shared. "Well, let's hope I don't carry it around everywhere and then trip on something and, oops, there's an accident. We liked to think it was... earned." A slight pause. "By us, the team in the Dream. And then those two who healed me." They need credit, too.

"In any case, if you have any more advice, it would be welcome." Meanwhile, she'll stand back in the name of Doors. (And more tea.)

"It's not much fun," Una notes, "Finding people you care about waking up in a pool of their own blood."

Her expression is rueful. And, as if she's sensed the shift in conversation as Della metaphorically steps back, she adds, "Not that the Doors were always fun, either. Less waking up in pools of blood, and more... more running for your life in search of the door that will get you home again."

Bill’s only offering one cup of tea, though. When Della reaches for the pot again, he puts his hand on it to forestall her and shakes his head. “More than one cup can have ill effects. One of the ways our brothers and sisters in plant form ensure we don’t abuse their generosity.”

This gets a look from Jules, transparently questioning just what Bill has served them.

“They weren’t all bad,” she says in mild objection to Una’s telling. “They were all lessons. Or opportunities. They were meaningful.”

"Good to know," Della says congenially enough; she sticks with what she's got, sip by sip, keeping her hands wrapped around it. (But with a quick glance back between him and Jules, and then to Una, too.)

Rather than enter into the good or bad of Doors, "Stop me if you've heard," she recommends, but otherwise will go on to briefly explain: the unexpected passageways, the changes in place and time, that anyone could bring things back. A few of the places they had known people to go, very much incomplete. Nothing too exhaustive or exhausting.

Una's gaze, too, turns sharply intent: all eyes on the tea, and whatever properties it has that require such a restriction. It means she's not quick enough to reply to Jules' objection, and instead leaves off to allow Della to make her explanation.

"I think a lot of it was random, though," is what she says, tacked on to that explanation. "Where we ended up. Why. I mean, not all of it, obviously, or you'd never have gone to New Zealand, and we'd never have met Millie. But there's no real logic in my ending up in Egypt twice. Have you ever heard of this happening before?" she wonders, glancing in Bill's direction.

It’s too bad Jules hasn’t got any of the mental powers that some of them are gifted with, because if she did she’d be regaling them with her sarcasm: great, Indian shaman here is going to poison us all.

Even though presumably Bill knows what he’s doing.

He shakes his head once Una asks her question. “Not as such. There’s plenty of stories from the old days about people having strange encounters, but it’s hard to say exactly what they were. Maybe some of it falls under these Doors of yours; maybe not.”

She doesn't, but for some reason Della's glance lingers on Jules anyway, her mouth curling up a little.

Della doesn't chip in, even for Millie; she doesn't sigh at all this nebulousness; she definitely doesn't mention certain cats.

"I suppose it's all just... manifestations of chaos? Power? Something?" Una hazards, sounding thoughtful. She is not going to exchange glances with the others: shaman powers are explicitly trusted, here.

"I know what I said earlier, but... I do miss them, a little. Sometimes. They were interesting. I still don't know... were they real history? All of them? Clearly New Zealand was real. Millie, we have to assume. But the others?"

“I don’t know why it’d be any different,” Jules opines. Her eyebrow has lifted in answer to that small smile of Della’s. “It’s all real in one way or another. Remember—we’ve got the Pompeii kittens to prove it.”

Della, quickly -- quickly to start to ask, but conversationally-paced for the actual asking, as though she's been waiting to ask all this time (and probably she has) -- "Bill, what is your cat's name? Do you have just the one?"

Because Jules reminded her, and she's certainly not giving her roommate the stank face, no.

Una plainly has Opinions— or at least strong feelings— about the reality-or-otherwise of their historical ventures, but Della's asked her question, and that leaves her no further gap to fill; she stills, letting it go.

“That’s Smoke,” Bill answers. If he’s picked up on any tension, there’s no indication of it. “Just the one—he’s not great about sharing.”

The cat sits and cleans his paw. Clearly he has no idea what Bill is talking about.

"Nice to meet you, Smoke," Della says gravely. "Officially, this time." Her smile's quirking up; there are all sorts of followups, but -- "Were you going to say something, Una?" The buck, she's passing it.

"No," is prompt enough. "Nothing important. Should we— I don't want to take up too much of your time, Bill."

Bill spreads open his hands. “It’s not everyday I have visitors from Gray Harbor,” he replies. “It’s the most exciting thing to have happened all week.” But, recognizing that this might be a polite means of excusing oneself, he adds, “If you have time, I recommend checking out the museum here. If you tell them I sent you to see the Ozette collection, they might let you see some of the things that aren’t on display for the public, too.”

"Ozette." A quick glance at the other two, a quick reach for her phone, a quick question about the spelling -- moments later, Della's tapping that in. "Thank you. And, dare I ask what happened last week?" must be mostly teasing. But still. Fire.

For the rest of clearing out, she can be efficient: finishing off her tea, discreetly eyeing the dregs for anything interesting, discreetly checking herself -- not that she's a healer -- for remaining wonkiness before deciding whether to lend Jules the keys.

"We'll stay in touch," Una promises. "If more things happen."

There's a crack to her voice on 'if' rather as though she's mentally substituting it for 'when' but trying to sound positive even so.

"And thank you."

Bill laughs at the question, a warm rolling sound. “Nothing nearly as fun as this,” he assures, which calls into question his idea of fun.

Perhaps oddly, that perks Della right up, and all at once she grins. "In that case."

She has the keys, and she's gonna use them. Museum, anyone?