SIX: CARRION PRIDE
GABRIELLA
It's been ten years now. And still, every single morning, Gabriella reaches out before her eyes are open to make sure Sam is still there. She just can't fathom how all this worked out. Even back then, when she was nineteen and naïve as hell, she gave them three months, tops. But here she is, twenty-nine, and there Sam is, thirty-one, and the house is slowly falling apart around them and the beautiful little shithole they live in is bleeding from the throat but here they are. Still.
Sam reaches back, still sleeping, and pulls her closer into their little cocoon of warmth. Beyond the four corners of the bed, the room is as cold as the frozen trees outside the window. But here, curled into Sam's chest, Gabriella is feeling just fine.
These are the precious moments, when things are for a few brief seconds comfortable. Soon, she'll get up and unbraid her hair and line her eyes with a stick of kohl worn down to a nub like a baby's finger, and take a cup of vile instant coffee out to the desk in the station to wait for people who want to buy cigarettes or snacks or – rarest of all – petrol, and maybe today somebody will come and maybe they won't but either way she'll come back at the end of the day and they will do this all over again.
It's not much. But it doesn't have to be. Not so long as they're sharing it.
Sam opens her eyes and wrinkles her nose.
“You again,” she says. “Thought I'd chased you off an' all.”
“Can't get rid of me that easily,” says Gabriella. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Nah.” She feels Sam's hand brushing through her hair, flicking something away. “Five more minutes.”
Gabriella lets her head sink onto Sam's shoulder. She can smell her: motor oil, cigarettes, unwashed hair. As familiar as her own face in the mirror.
“Okay,” she says, curling her arm tighter around Sam's waist. “Five more minutes.”
Five more minutes then, and then five more, and then Gabriella insists, because Sam promised Fergus Wright his car would be fixed by this afternoon and she knows for a fact that she's barely even started, and then at last it's time to crawl out into the cold and undo her braid. Sam sits up in bed, watching her dress, until Gabriella turns around and throws a tube of mascara at her.
“Get up, Miss Spade,” she says.
“I'm gettin' up, Miss Kendrick.”
“You make it look an awful lot like staying in bed.”
“I'm takin' my time. When you get to my advanced age―”
“You're two years older than me.”
“―then you find it takes longer to get started in the mornin', dunnit.”
“I'm going to throw my hairbrush next.”
“Okay, okay, you win.”
In the kitchen, they drink coffee while Jack screeches for food and Morgan, Sam's clefairy, jingles to herself in the corner. The two used to fight a lot, but while Jack is tough Morgan picked up a few electric-type moves back on Sam's trainer journey, and after some scorched feathers and pecked throats the two have more or less learned that this is a battle nobody wins.
“Can you do the shoppin' later today?” asks Sam. “Think this might be all the coffee we got.”
“If you finish that car.”
“Well. Guess I can see my way to doin' that.”
She looks so much like herself, with her coffee cup in one hand and her cigarette in the other. Flannel shirt like one of the loggers at the mill. Close-cropped hair and nicotine-yellow teeth. Her parents called her Samantha because they were Bogart fans, but there is a sense in which she actually does look a little like him. That heavy, arrogant face. Those dark eyes.
“Take a picture,” says Sam, watching her stare. “It'll last longer.”
Gabriella smiles that particular smile that she knows Sam finds maddeningly beautiful, and grabs her keys from the bowl.
“See you later, grease monkey. Morgan, make sure she doesn't cut her fingers off or something.”
Morgan mews in that cute clefairy way, like she's never flattened anyone with a beam of concentrated moonlight, and Gabriella takes her leave, down the hall with the threadbare carpet and out through the patched door into the blinding white of fresh snowfall.
No, it's not much. But it's hers, and Sam's, and theirs is a life lived only in the space between the lines but still, it's all she's ever really wanted.
Later that day, after a morning during which nobody comes into the little shop other than Sam, looking for cigarettes and a quick kiss, Gabriella leaves for town. She doesn't take Jack; she loves him, of course, but he can't be trusted in the shops. If she takes her eyes off him for an instant she'll look back to find him beak-deep in either the merchandise or someone's pokémon. So he stays, to perch on the station roof and call Sam out of the garage if a customer comes by, and Gabriella is left to make the long walk to the centre of town alone.
It's all right. She trudges along the side of the road beside the sparse houses and the huge, silent pines, trying not to slither on the snow, and soon enough the town thickens around her and other pedestrians start to appear: Carrie Savage, polite but disdainful (she is one of the few who really believe she is Sam's cousin, and doesn't see why someone as eligible as Gabriella has gone ten years in town without dating); Janine Williams, more cheerful than she has been in months; even Keisha Simmons, back in town now and walking a bayleef that looks altogether too energetic for a grass-type in December. Gabriella returns smiles and waves, asks after the appropriate people and enquires about Keisha's Gym badges, and carries on her way.
Yes, it's all right; and mostly she doesn't even think about the fact that another woman walking alone through town didn't live to see her destination the other day. Then she cuts through the park towards the shops, and about five minutes into this leg of the trip her day takes a turn for the unexpected.
At first she doesn't recognise the young woman coming down the path towards her, but this isn't unusual at this time of year; people wear so many layers that sometimes it's hard to tell who it is that's under it all. Even so, she seems distinctive enough that Gabriella should know her. How many young people in Mahogany walk with a cane? Not many, for sure. Probably only Alex. But he's not―
A thin, whining squeal, and an ash-coloured noivern thumps down onto the path in front of her.
Gabriella stops. Dead.
“Oh,” she says. “I … didn't recognise you.”
“Hi Gabbi,” says Alex. “It's, uh, it's Jodi now.”
Gabriella just about manages to stop herself saying that that's a pretty name. She isn't sure why, exactly, but it feels sort of patronising.
It is pretty, though. As is Jodi. Startlingly so. Gabriella never really noticed it before, but now that she's been placed in context as a girl, it's obvious enough that she's a little embarrassed not to have realised earlier.
“Right.” She's the same person, Gabriella tells herself. Not a stranger. “Okay, Jodi. Nice to, uh, see you.”
They stare at each other for a while, unable to just walk on past one another but also unable to think of anything to say, and then Jodi asks if Gabriella walked all the way out here from the station and they force their way slowly into a conversation. It turns out Jodi is here to retrace Tacoma's final steps, which makes Gabriella's heart hurt a little, and though she tries to talk her out of it she isn't sure that she's managed to help her at all. She extracts a vague promise from Jodi that she'll come and visit on Sunday, more or less entirely so Gabriella can check she's doing okay, and leaves feeling shaken. It's not that she didn't know this was a thing; during her and Sam's brief stay in Goldenrod, in the heart of what passes for Johto's gay scene, she ran into several women like Jodi. It's more that she never expected to come across one here in Mahogany.
Frankly, she's worried. This is not the best place for someone like Jodi to live; there's a reason why Gabriella and Sam pretend to be cousins, after all. Even if nobody really believes them, they need plausible deniability if they want a quiet life: this is their contract with the town, the compromise that allows everyone to feel okay about being Gabriella's friend. That defence isn't open to Jodi. Gabriella gets the sense that her family have their heads on right, and so she's probably got the support she needs there, but she'll have to keep an eye on her all the same. She can't pretend to understand what it is that Jodi is going through, but she knows the drill here. If you are peripheral, you look out for each other. Simple as that.
Not that she needs convincing. She sighs, tries to shake her worry out of her head, and carries on towards the shops. Maybe after Fergus pays them, she could get some eggs and make Jodi a cake on Sunday. She feels like she ought to do something, anyway. The poor kid arrived in town all ready to come out and found her best friend dead. She deserves a break.
Whatever she decides to do, she has to get through this shopping trip first. Given that Jodi is out and wandering the streets, she's got an unpleasant feeling that it isn't going to be as much fun as she was hoping.
Gabriella's first stop is the butcher's, where Steven works. She takes a moment to psych herself up – it isn't just that he might have heard about Jodi, it's also that ever since he broke up with Janine, he hasn't been able to shut up about it – and then she goes around the corner and walks in.
Hi, says Steven from behind the glass-topped counter, and more or less immediately says that it's terrible about Tacoma, isn't it? Yes, agrees Gabriella, heaving a mental sigh of relief. Yes, it is.
Steven leans on the counter and shakes his head. He keeps thinking she'll come in soon to pick up some bloodcake. Only a few people in town even like the stuff – traditional north Johto fare or not, it's still like eating salted scabs – but Nikole loved it. Tacoma came by every week to pick up three cakes for her. Every Friday, without fail. When the door jingled just now, he thought …
Steven shakes his head again and sighs like a man who has of late been feeling the blows and buffets of fate more keenly than is usual. Sorry, he says, reaching under the glass for the trimmings he keeps at one end of the counter. The usual, then?
Yes, of course. Gabriella takes the leftovers from a couple of this week's joints, passes Steven her last crown and gets two and five in change. Kanto decimalised last year, the florin taking over as the new currency, but here in Johto there are still lessons in school to teach you how to calculate your money. Not that it matters. None of it's worth anything any more anyway. Two shillings seven for a few scraps of meat? If this keeps up, there won't even be any point to pennies any more.
Thank you, she says, reminding herself that Fergus will pay later today and she doesn't need to worry about money just yet, and leaves to get the coffee and lentils.
Next up: Lutyen's Supplies, more usually known as 'the store'; it's small, but the shelves are high and densely packed, and it forms the cornerstone of any shopping trip in Mahogany. Like usual, there are a few other people around there – including Leanne Wright, Fergus' wife. She and her snubbull corner Gabriella by the flour and ask about the car; Gabriella flashes her the smile that earned her most of her tips back in the bar in New Bark and promises that it will absolutely be done by four.
Leanne thanks her, and then asks if she's heard the news. Which news, Gabriella asks, a nameless dread bubbling sluggishly inside her like molten tar, and when Leanne says that Fergus saw Alex Ortega walking round town in women's clothes she raises an eyebrow in polite surprise.
Really, she says, wishing Jack was here to end the conversation by dive-bombing Leanne's snubbull. I guess you never can tell.
This is meaningless enough to be safe, and Leanne readily agrees that no, you never can, can you, at which point Gabriella says that unfortunately she's in a little bit of a hurry but if either Leanne or Fergus want to come by the station at four the car will be waiting, and walks quickly away towards the counter.
But there's no respite here, of course. Sarah's central position in town means she's well placed to indulge her passion for gossip, and Leanne has already told her. Something vicious stirs in Gabriella at how pleased Sarah looks to have gained access to such juicy news, and when asked if she's heard about Alex Ortega she throws caution to the winds and says yes, she bumped into her on the way here.
The emphasis on her is slight, but unmistakeable. Sarah stares at her for a long moment, but Gabriella has weathered worse, and she stares right back.
By the way, Sarah, she says. Do you have any of that Kantan coffee left? It's Sam's favourite.
Yes, says Sarah, still staring. Yes, okay, she does.
Safely outside, Gabriella adjusts the weight of her bag on her arm and pinches the bridge of her nose. Leanne probably heard all of that. And now people will have something else to talk about when the news about Jodi gets around.
Well, fuck it. It's what friends are for. And it isn't like people don't talk about Gabriella already. She jingles the last couple of coins in her pocket, decides she can't afford to get the roofing nails today after all, and turns on her heel to start on her way home. If she leaves now, she thinks, she might even make it back by three.
Fergus paid 135 crowns, seven shillings and ninepence, of which Gabriella calculates they get to keep 31c, 2/6. The rest goes on the bills, some of which have been overdue for long enough that even Gabriella is having trouble charming the company reps when they call asking for money. That evening, she sits cross-legged on a dining chair at the kitchen table, adding up and subtracting and nailing down exactly what this week's take is, and looks up after some time to see Sam leaning against the doorway, watching her and running her fingers through Morgan's oil-stained fur.
“What?”
“You're very pretty when you're concentrating, Miss Kendrick.”
Gabriella snorts with the kind of scorn that is meant to be seen through.
“Going to take more than that to wheedle extra beer money out of me, Sam.”
“Ain't beer I'm after, kitten.”
Sam's arms slip around her shoulders, her breath warm on the nape of Gabriella's neck. Gabriella fakes her resistance for a second longer, keeping the game going, then tilts her head back to lean against Sam's cheek.
“Fergus said he ran into your friend Alex,” says Sam, after a while. “Did you hear?”
“I ran into her too,” says Gabriella. “Her name's Jodi these days.”
Sam's head bows against hers, her cheekbone grazing Gabriella's barrette.
“Is it now,” she says. “She okay?”
“Not really. I found her wandering around in the park, trying to retrace Tacoma Spearing's last movements.”
“Christ.”
“Yeah.” Gabriella squeezes Sam's rough fingers between her own. “Feel stupid, Sam. I just wasn't expecting it, and I couldn't hide my surprise. She didn't need that from me.”
“Can't be helped. Nobody woulda expected it.”
“I shouldn't have let her see my shock.”
“Can't control your first reaction, kitten. 'S what you do afterwards that matters.”
Gabriella sighs.
“Yeah,” she says, reluctantly. “Maybe.” Pause. That drip is still going. Sometime Gabriella will definitely have to get those roofing nails. “I invited her round on Sunday. Listen to the Kraftwerk record. Thought I might make a cake, too.”
“You never make me cakes,” says Sam, mock-angry.
“Just thinking of your dentist, Miss Spade.”
She feels Sam's smile in the way her face shifts against her head, and smiles back.
“Krautrock and cake, huh?” asks Sam. “Guess I can get behind half of that, at least. Keep an eye on her?”
“Keep an eye on her,” agrees Gabriella. “I think she'll be okay. León and Michelle are sensible people.”
“So are my parents,” says Sam. “Don't hurt to be careful, does it?”
“No. It doesn't.”
Gabriella's parents claimed to be sensible, too. Claim, even. They're probably still alive, back in New Bark in the big, half-ruined house they're too proud to sell and too poor to maintain. Kendrick used to be a big name, back in the nineteenth century, when the royal family was more than a figurehead and you could make real money by squeezing your serfs just that little bit harder than was entirely ethical. But that time is past, and all that's left are two bitter ex-aristocrats and the daughter they so thoroughly despised for not knowing any better than the poverty she was born to that when a girl with a motorbike and a man's haircut offered her a ride out of town, she took it without a second thought.
Sensible people, they said they were, and yet not so sensible that Gabriella ever felt like telling them about her crushes on the other girls at school.
She and Sam stay there at the table for a while, lost in the past and the feel of each other, and then Morgan tugs irritably on Sam's shirt and she follows her back out to the living-room to get the fire going for the night. Gabriella remains a few moments more, thinking about Jodi and running the calculations over and over, and then she forces herself to close the account book and call Jack over to her shoulder. Jodi will be fine. And there's Ally Foster's piano lesson tomorrow; that's another twenty crowns. Nothing to worry about, really. Nothing.
In the living-room, Sam is crouched in front of the fireplace, shoving balled-up newspaper in among the logs while Morgan tosses an embryonic fireball between her paws. Clefairy are useful like that. Their moon magic can mimic moves of almost every elemental type, with a push in the right direction from a TM. As Sam gets up again, Morgan blasts the wood with a star of orange fire, then sits down on the hearth with her little paws held out to the flames. After a suitable pause, so everyone knows he's doing this for warmth and not because he likes Morgan at all, Jack joins her, firelight gleaming through the feathers of his spread wings.
Sam flicks the TV on and sits down, Gabriella curled up alongside with her head resting on her shoulder. She closes her eyes, suddenly too tired to really process the tiny image on the screen, and only when Sam says hey Miss Kendrick, it's not bedtime yet does she realise she's been asleep for the past fifty minutes.
Saturday is slow and cold. A few people come in to buy snacks; Keisha comes along with her friend Crystal to buy gum and a couple of the glossy foreign magazines that Gabriella decided they should sell a few years back, when she noticed that Sarah didn't. So far, it's been a good idea. Mahogany's kids are an untapped market, and even if they don't have much money, they're willing to toss what they have at shiny pictures of Unovan cars and Kalois supermodels. Gabriella sells Crystal a fashion magazine, notices the way she looks at the woman on the cover, and wonders if she's figured out how it really is between her and Sam yet. She isn't sure about Crystal, of course, same way she isn't sure about Rachel or Xavier, but Gabriella likes to think she and Sam are doing their part to be a bad influence on Mahogany's kids.
Only Max Lockwood buys petrol, and only a little of it. The oil embargo has been over for two years, but it feels like Johto never got the memo. The country was hit too hard, too soon after the war, and now it's fallen it's struggling to get its feet back underneath it. But still, there are the magazines, and there's the cigarettes they sell to people like Jodi who are old enough to legally buy them but know Sarah will rat them out to their parents if they go through her, and all these things are tiny but they do add up, in the end.
At two Sam takes over while Gabriella spends an hour putting all her childhood piano lessons to good use. Her parents believed that a young lady of good breeding ought to be able to play violin and piano; it's one of the few things she can think of to thank them for. Gabriella likes music, and she likes teaching it to people, and most of all she likes making a little extra money out of it. She wishes she actually practised as much as she tells her students to, but there just never seems to be the time. Sometimes she plays the pop songs of the last decade for Sam while she lies down on the sofa, watching her fingers dance on the keys, and the attention makes her feel as shivery inside as when she first realised that it was her Sam was looking at, across the crowded bar.
For today, though: lessons, station, dinner. She and Sam spar and flirt and sharpen their wits on one another, firing Miss Spades and Miss Kendricks back and forth with gleeful vigour, and then that night they swap the mockery for pet names again and curl into one another on the sofa, watching an imported Kantan crime drama about people who have the free time to brood about their traumas. As usual, Gabriella falls asleep halfway through, exhausted even though she feels she hasn't really done anything today at all, and as usual Sam refuses to wake her until the last possible moment. Gabriella pretends to be angry that Sam let her miss the show so they can have the pleasure of reconciling, and then Sam says leave the dishes, kitten, I'll do them in the morning, and while Morgan puts up the fireguard the two of them retreat to the warm embrace concealed at the heart of their chilly bedroom.
On Sunday, Jodi comes to visit, and the routine is broken. Gabriella tasks Sam and Morgan with cleaning the living-room and lighting the fire, and applies herself to cake-making. Sometimes she's a little ashamed of it, but she really does enjoy playing the housewife. Her younger self would be appalled, probably, at least until she realised that she was also living several hundred miles away from New Bark with the woman of her dreams.
It occurs to her, as it sometimes does, that this is the rest of her life, maintaining this house in this gorgeous little town with her gorgeous partner and all her gorgeous friends who like her even if she is a bloody dyke, and the glorious shock of it holds her frozen for a long moment until Jack stalks along the counter to peck at her hand and break the spell.
She cups his head in her hand, smoothing his feathers with her thumb, and he squeezes his single eye shut in pleasure, leaning into her grip.
“You and me, Jackie,” she says, thinking of all those hours she spent watching the gulls on the marina as a kid, dreaming of the day she could go on a journey and have one for her partner. “We turned out okay for a couple of degenerates, didn't we?”
He mewls and snaps lazily at her finger. The movement is vicious, but there's more than one way to show affection, and Gabriella knows what he means.
“I love you too, dirtbag,” she tells him, tapping him on the end of his beak. “Go on. Over there now. I need to grease this tin.”
He flaps off, wings fanning up a cloud of flour, and perches on the shelf to glare while Gabriella gets on with the cake. It's actually kind of comforting, honestly. She understands why his gaze unsettles people, but at this point, she feels vaguely troubled when he's not looking at her like he's judging the best way to pull out her tonsils.
Not too long after, Jodi arrives, and it's clear right away that she's doing better than she was when they last met on Friday; her eyes are bright, her voice is cheery, and Lothian is relaxed, no longer glancing up at her every few seconds to make sure she's okay. Gabriella banishes Jack to the bedroom, where he can do no harm to cake or noivern, and gets Jodi sat down on the good sofa with the record player on in the background.
The resultant conversation is long and surprisingly heartfelt, meandering around the topics of music and Tacoma and being true to yourself. Gabriella is kind of shocked at how much and how suddenly Jodi seems to have grown up; it feels like it was only yesterday that she was sitting there with her violin under her jaw, sawing away while Gabriella made encouraging noises. Now she talks about music in ways that Gabriella struggles to match, and comes up with a beautiful metaphor to describe what it feels like to say fuck it, I'm just going to be me and screw the rest of you that Gabriella makes a mental note to share with Sam later.
It's a little silly, but she's proud of her. Not like Gabriella can take much credit for this, really; she's probably just some adult to Jodi. But still. It does her good to see the way she's turned out.
Towards the end of the conversation, Jodi asks about chapter houses, and that's where things start to go south. For some reason, this draws in Sam, looking as suspicious as Gabriella has ever seen her; she departs as quickly as she arrives, barely even bothering to make an excuse, and Gabriella is left with an uneasy feeling in her gut. When she asks to speak to Jodi alone before she goes, it's all Gabriella can do not to put a glass to the door and listen in. Jodi comes out of the kitchen afterwards looking pale and determined, and Gabriella knows that this isn't one she can just let slide.
“Well?” she asks, the instant the door has closed on Jodi's retreating back. “What the hell was all that about?”
Sam shrugs.
“Nothin',” she says. “We was just talkin'.”
“About?”
For a second, Gabriella thinks she's actually going to do it, is actually going to stand there and lie to her face, but then Sam's shoulders fall and she can breathe out in the knowledge that the truth is coming.
“Tacoma,” says Sam. “She's still tryin' to investigate her death. I tried to talk her out of it.”
“Okay. Good for you.”
“You, uh, you don't sound too happy about it, kitten―”
“Not in the mood for that, Sam,” says Gabriella, annoyed. “If that's all it was, why were you trying to hide it? And what was with you sticking your head in earlier when Jodi was asking about chapter houses?”
Sam holds up her hands in surrender.
“Easy, Gabs,” she says. “You don't need to be mad―”
“I'm trying not to be,” replies Gabriella, “but that really sounds like something you'd say just before you made me mad.”
“Would you shut up a second? I'm tryin' to tell you, all right?” Gabriella nods, grinding her irritation back down inside her, and Sam sighs. “The chapter house thing,” she says. “'S a place in town. Don't know where. But it's a place where, y'know, where they meet.”
“They?” The word comes out before she can stop herself. “Who's they?”
“You know. Them.” Sam makes a side-to-side motion of her head. “The ones who don't like it when you go lookin' for people who've disappeared.”
Shit. Absolutely, terrifyingly – shit. Okay. Now Gabriella sees what Sam is driving at.
“Like Mae,” she says, slowly. “Right?”
“Right.”
They share a long, level look. Gabriella takes hold of both Sam's hands and pulls her closer.
“I'm sorry,” she says. “I didn't mean to snap, I just – the look on her face when she came out …”
“Yeah, I know.” Sam twists her hands around and suddenly now she's holding Gabriella's, squeezing gently. “'S okay.”
They stand there for a moment, silent, until Sam slides her hands up Gabriella's arms and down her back to clasp each other over her spine.
“I don't think they had anythin' to do with Tacoma,” she says. “No reason, is there? Whatever it is they do, they don't go for Mahogany kids. Definitely not Mahogany kids like Tacoma.”
“I always thought she was …”
“Yeah, me too. But she's got― she had prospects. Know what I mean?”
“Yes.” Gabriella shrugs. “I guess you're probably right, Sam. But if Jodi's investigating it anyway …”
She doesn't ask who Sam thinks did it. They've had that conversation already, back when they first heard the news, and both of them agreed they weren't going to be intimidated by some coward who skulks around in the dark. Gabriella isn't sure either of them believed this, but they did at least say it.
“I know, Gabs.” Sam tightens her grip a little, and Gabriella lets herself be drawn in close, her nose against Sam's brow. People always think Sam's taller, but she isn't; she just has a big presence. “Don't think they'll do anythin' to her just for asking questions, but we need to watch out.”
“Yeah. I'll ask around tomorrow night, see if she's been speaking about this to anyone else.”
Sam nods.
“Right. I'm seein' Dino tomorrow. I'll ask him, too.”
Pause. All the little noises of the house settle around them: Jack scratching around in the bedroom, the chiming of Morgan's magic as she cleans the oil from her fur, the drip of the leak in what they pretend is Gabriella's room. Each sound restores the calm just a little, until the two of them can no longer feel the tension in one other's muscles.
“You know, Jodi said something to me,” says Gabriella, after a while. “About … about being true to yourself, I guess. She said it was like there was an arcanine straining against a leash inside her, and then it broke and there was nothing anyone could do to hold it back.”
Sam raises her eyebrows.
“Nice,” she says. “You shoulda just stolen that one. I wouldn't have known, you know?”
“Miss Spade, your capacity to find new ways of lowering your moral standards is simply staggering,” says Gabriella, cupping Sam's jaw in her hands and tilting it towards her own. “Quite how you're still not in jail is completely beyond me.”
Sam grins.
“I'm workin' on it,” she says. “How about ram-raidin' the store?”
“Sounds delightful, but some other time. I have work tomorrow.”
“You're never any fun.”
“Oh, I think we both know that's not true,” Gabriella tells her. “So … look, handsome, that was your cue, so quit laughing and accept your kiss with good grace.”
“Yes, ma'am,” says Sam, trying to keep a straight face, and then Gabriella laughs too and in the end it turns out to be quite some time before anybody gets kissed at all.
On Monday and Thursday nights, Gabriella does a shift at the Briar Rose, the little bar on West Street. She used to do it just to get out a bit and keep her hand in – working in Nero's in New Bark was mostly hell, but she has a few fond memories of her time there and besides, the Briar Rose has a nicer clientèle – but since the embargo started, it's been kind of a lifeline. She'd have taken more shifts, only Sam put her foot down. You do too much already, she said. Any more and you're gonna die, and no one else makes my coffee the way I like it, so if it's all the same to you I'd rather you stayed alive. Privately, Gabriella feels that this is a massive exaggeration, but she went along with it anyway. She has always found a certain sweetness in being defeated by someone she loves.
So: two nights a week, and on Monday evening Gabriella walks into town with Jack (for company, mostly, but also because it's dark and Mahogany nights don't seem quite so safe these days) to meet Aaron. He never looks great, exactly – he might have been handsome, once, but he's worn that sullen expression for so long at this point that it's worn permanent lines into his face – and today he looks worse than usual: black circles around bloodshot eyes, a few missed patches of stubble around his normally neat moustache. Can't have been easy, pulling a body out of the water. Especially if it's someone you know.
“Evening,” she says, coming in and shrugging off her coat. “How are you doing, Aaron?”
He gives her a look. Behind his back, Jack settles onto his usual perch on the top shelf, knowing that Gabriella will send him home again if he comes down from it. She considers it good practice to make sure there's a decent space between him and Steph; despite the type match-up, he usually wins that fight, and likes to start it if he gets a chance.
“You ever seen a dead body?” asks Aaron, and Gabriella's attention snaps back to him.
“Yes,” she replies. (A memory: the winter of '57, a walk down to the beach, a frozen woman curled around a near-dead charmander.) “Never anyone I know, though,” she adds, trying to make him feel better. “Never touched one, either.”
“Well, then you know, don't you?” Aaron folds his arms, annoyed at her for spoiling his story. “Terrible business, this.”
“It is,” agrees Gabriella. “Let me know if you need anything, Aaron.”
He sniffs and disappears into the back room without another word. Gabriella shakes her head and hangs her coat up on the hook. There's a while yet before anyone will arrive. Time to clean this place up a little. Aaron thinks that the ratty cushions and the tarnish on the fittings lend this place a certain careworn charm, but Gabriella is pretty sure people wouldn't come here if there was anywhere nicer to get a drink in this town.
Time passes, and the bar begins to fill up. Gabriella has a theory that these days people drink more than they used to; at least, she's sure that this place never used to see this much traffic on a Monday night. León comes in with some of the boys from the mill for a round of beers; Gabriella tells him that Jodi is a fine young woman and a credit to her family, and in his stupefied delight he accidentally tips her a whole crown. She gives it back, aware that he has a psychic at home to feed, and he looks at it for a while before returning half of it to her hand.
Thank you, he says, looking more relieved than Gabriella has ever seen him before, and takes the first two beers over to the table. She stands there for a moment, trying not to cry at how happy he is that someone thinks of his daughter as his daughter, and then moves down the bar to greet Janine as she arrives. Janine says hi back, and that she's waiting for someone before she orders, thanks; Gabriella asks who the lucky guy is and Janine just shakes her head, grinning. She takes a seat at a corner table, and then a few discreet minutes later is joined by Simeon Brennan, who buys her some Cianwood peach brandy and stumbles over his words as he hands Gabriella the money.
Good luck, Sim, she tells him, with a mischievous smile, and watches him go bright red as he takes the drinks over to the table.
The hands on the clock make circuits of the dial. Aaron hovers, pours drinks and glowers at anyone who asks him how he's doing; Gabriella pulls pints and ruthlessly extracts tips from those she thinks can afford them. Steven pops in, orders a drink and then, noticing Janine, changes his mind and walks out again, leaving a couple of shillings on the bar to cover the beer Gabriella is still halfway through pouring.
Around her, tongues wag: wives, Tacoma, Jodi. Some guy asks his friend if he's heard about Alex Ortega, and the friend jerks his head backwards at León, two tables over. Better not, he says, and the guy nods and goes ahh, gotcha. Across the room, Brett Packard is telling León how the cops came round his parents' house to ask about his dad's electrode, and he's got this theory that it must have been an electric-type that killed Tacoma because they also asked the Astons about Crystal's ampharos. Well, says León, nodding his head at the door, I guess we might find out.
Gabriella follows his gaze and sees, of all people, Con Wicke. He stands in the doorway for a moment, as if uncertain whether or not he really wants to be here, then seems to come to a decision and takes a seat at the bar.
“Con,” says Gabriella, moving over. “I didn't expect to see you here.”
This close, he looks about as good as Aaron does. Gabriella suspects that this is a difficult time to be Chief of Police in Mahogany.
“It's been a rough few days,” he says, not meeting her eye. “Hawthorn Redcap, please.”
“Coming up.” Gabriella brushes the dust off the bottle – it's meant to be the best whisky on the Tohjo peninsula, but nobody ever actually drinks it – and pours him a generous measure; he looks like he needs it. “Half a crown, Con.”
“Jesus. Talk about inflation.”
“Tell me about it,” she says, taking his money and sticking it in the till. “How's the investigation going?”
He grimaces.
“Slowly,” he says. “We have a few leads we're following. Can't say more than that.”
“No, I know.” She leans on the counter, brings herself close enough to unsettle him. Con has what he thinks is a secret love for her, and while it's a little underhanded to abuse it like this, Gabriella can't resist the opportunity to push a little harder. Besides, if he isn't observant enough to work out that she and Sam are together then he's just asking to be conned. “I'm sure you're doing all you can,” she says. “Whoever did this, you'll bring them to justice.”
Con moves back a little on his stool, sipping his whisky to cover his awkwardness.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he mutters. “Sometimes it feels like we're not making progress at all.”
“Can't be easy. You let me know if you need anything, right?”
He hesitates, glass hovering indecisively between coaster and mouth, and then takes the plunge.
“Buy you a drink?” he asks. “I just saw Aaron go in the back.”
Gabriella smiles, and sees a little answering light flicker in Con's eyes.
“Sure,” she says. “What he doesn't know won't hurt him.” She pours herself a glass of white wine and takes another few shillings off Con. “It really is awful about Tacoma,” she says. “You know she was one of the first people I ever met in this town? My first day here, I was wandering around like a lost sheep, and she welcomed me to Mahogany like she was the Queen and I was the Unovan ambassador.”
Con's only answer is a strained smile, which Gabriella takes to mean that he came to the bar to forget Tacoma for a while, not to discuss her further.
“Sorry,” she says. “You've probably had enough of her for now, huh?”
“No, it's okay,” he says, although it clearly isn't. “I get it. Everyone liked her.”
“Someone didn't.”
He sighs.
“Yeah,” he says. “I guess so.”
They both sip their drinks. People are watching them, Gabriella can tell, but she doesn't care.
“I heard Jodi Ortega's been helping out with your investigation,” she says. “Looked into Nikole's memories or something?”
Con scowls, but only for a moment. Annoyed about the leak? Or about the fact that she called Jodi by her actual name? Gabriella has always had him down as a reasonably open-minded guy – he brought the first ever woman onto Mahogany's police force, after all – but it wouldn't be the first time she'd misjudged someone.
“Yeah,” he replies. “Guess you can't keep a secret in Mahogany, huh.”
“Nope.” Gabriella smiles again, and sees his face soften accordingly. Good. Keep him on side. “Strictly confidentially,” she says, “anything juicy in there?”
She gets the tone just right: Con chuckles, shakes his head.
“Looking for gossip, huh? Well, sorry, but unless you find the woods particularly interesting, there's not much there for you.”
“The woods, huh?”
“Yeah. Someone must've dumped Tacoma's things out there.”
Hm. That probably isn't a lead that Jodi can chase, unless she can come up with a reason to ask her dad to drive her out into the woods in midwinter. For the best. The less deeply she can dig into this, the better. Gabriella doesn't know who the people in the chapter house group really are, or if they really have anything to do with Tacoma's murder, but she does know they aren't ****ing around when it comes to protecting their secrecy.
“You sure you should be telling me this?” she asks, and Con shrugs.
“Not like it's a secret,” he replies. “I'm pretty sure half the town knows already.”
The door opens, and Gabriella hears a familiar laugh: there's Sam, slouching in with Dean Jackson.
“Be right back,” she tells Con, and moves down the bar to intercept the newcomers as they approach. “Evening, Sam. Dean.”
“Miss Kendrick,” says Sam, slapping her hands down on the bartop. “You're lookin' good tonight.”
“Flatterer.”
“Don't mean it ain't true,” says Sam. “Dino. Beer?”
“Sure thing, Sam.” He nods at Gabriella, raises one hand in a brief greeting. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself, big guy.”
She slides two beers across the bar and Sam slides back a handful of coins.
“No tip?” asks Gabriella, eyebrow raised.
“When you get home, Gabs,” says Sam, winking, and takes Dino and the beers over to an unoccupied table. Gabriella watches her go for maybe one moment longer than is necessary or prudent, and then glides back down the bar to Con. He looks like he has something to say, and sure enough as soon as she gets back he starts speaking.
“I was thinking,” he says, almost stammering but not quite. “You, uh, you … know Jodi, don't you?”
“Yes, I do. We talk about music.” Gabriella feigns a scowl, which means it comes out much prettier than if it were the real thing and in consequence makes Con even more nervous than he already is. “Why?”
“I was in the store earlier today and I heard her asking Sarah some questions,” he says. “About stuff that came up during the investigation.” About chapter houses, if Gabriella had to guess. “Look, I get that she's cut up about her friend and all, but she's still a kid. A murder investigation is no place for her. You know?”
“Yes,” she says. “I know.”
She swirls her wine around her glass, trying to slow herself down. Her head is already feeling a little light; there isn't really enough in her stomach right now to absorb the alcohol properly. One of the reasons she doesn't drink much any more.
“I also think,” she says, “that you and I both know this can be a dangerous town to ask those kinds of questions in, Con.”
He starts, the whisky jumping in his glass, and then glances over his shoulder at the table where Sam and Dean are deep in conversation.
“She told you?” he asks.
“Of course she did. Why wouldn't she?”
“I don't know. I guess I thought maybe it's the kind of thing she'd keep to herself.”
“Come on, Con, we've lived together in that house for ten years. You think either of us have any secrets left by now?”
“Huh. Ten years? Really?”
“Yes, I know. I can hardly believe it either.” She pretends to take another sip of her wine, although at this point she's decided that she won't have any more. “But she did tell me about why she had to leave town, and it seemed to me you would know too.”
“Before my time, really,” Con says. “I'd only just joined the force back then. Didn't know about – well, about any of this stuff.” He drinks a little of his whisky and shakes his head. “The things you learn as a cop, huh?”
“I think Sam picked it up from the other side of the law. Are you ever planning on doing something about them, by the way?”
“About who?”
“Them.”
“Oh.” He shrugs uncomfortably. “It's complicated. You think I don't want to? I'm Police Chief, Gabriella, I'm meant to―”
He cuts himself off, visibly suppressing the urge to glance over his shoulder. People are watching, but Gabriella doesn't think it's because of the subject; most don't even know about the chapter house group. The attention is more because they do know about Con's crush, and also about how spectacularly unavailable Gabriella is, and those two things next to each other are kind of entertaining.
“Look, it's like trying to grab a haunter,” he says. “Looks solid, then you reach out and it just melts between your fingers.”
“You're saying you can't find them?”
“You know what this town's like. People stick together.” Something seems to occur to him: he sits up a little straighter, tries to rearrange his features into something reassuring. “Hey, uh, if you do ever find anything out, though, then you come to me.”
Gabriella detects an unmistakeable undercurrent of because I can protect you. Jesus. She almost feels sorry for him; how is it possible to have watched her with the wide eyes of an unrequited lover for ten years and not figured out that this isn't the kind of thing that she's impressed by? Maybe this is cute, if you like policemen, but Gabriella is ambivalent about both police and men, and she just finds it kind of exasperating.
“Okay, Con,” she says, with a neutral kind of smile. “I'll bear that in mind. And I'll speak to Jodi, too.”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Jodi, right.” He clears his throat. “I appreciate it. I, uh, can't say I get it, any of it, but I guess that doesn't mean she shouldn't be safe.”
You guess, do you, Con? You guess. Gabriella can hear the reluctance in his voice, like it's some kind of concession to admit that Jodi deserves protection under the law, and she feels her heart close up like a pineco snapping all of its raised scales shut at once. Okay. You drink your expensive whisky and fuck off back to the station.
“Sure,” she says. “Excuse me, I think Pete wants my attention. Enjoy your whisky, Con.”
He raises his glass.
“Will do, Gabriella. Thanks.”
She flashes him a smile, tucks her wineglass under the bar, and moves away to take Pete's order. Aaron re-emerges from the back a few seconds later, Steph clomping in at his heels, and then everything begins to speed up again. Gabriella collects glasses and tips as the bar begins to empty out, and though she feels Con's eyes on her for the next half hour she doesn't offer so much as a glance in return.
He's a useful ally, she tells herself. Don't piss him off. But when he gets up to leave, his glass empty and a too-generous tip at its side, she finds she still can't bring herself to wish him a good night.
By eight, the last of the casual drinkers are long gone. Those who are left are the punters who have come here for the alcohol, not the company: the out of work, the depressed, the drunks. Not so many in a town this small, but there are still a few. Gabriella quietly explains to Marlo Brown that he should leave the bar on two feet like a man who knows when to quit rather than being blasted out by Jack like a drunken boy; he staggers out, left arm down the right sleeve of his coat, and she gets a rare nod of approval from Aaron, watching from the corner. Gabriella is certain he only hired her for her looks, but like Todd at Nero's he's since found that she brings a little more to the table than just a pretty face.
One of the desperate people is Phoenix Wroth, Tacoma's uncle. He creeps in late, grey and silent as a raincloud, and sinks onto a stool at one end of the bar, surrounded by an invisible fog that nobody dares come close enough to breathe in. Bloodshot eyes, stubbly cheeks, hair hanging limp and unwashed around his eyes. Gabriella's heart goes out to him. Jodi was hurt. Phoenix? Phoenix is destroyed.
“Hello,” he says vaguely, as she approaches. “It's, um … it's Carrie, right?”
Ordinarily, being mistaken for Carrie Savage would be something to take offence at, but given that Phoenix looks like he might die if she breathed on him Gabriella is inclined to cut him some slack. Besides, he hasn't really lived in Mahogany for years. It was only six months after she moved here that he went away to Saffron.
“Gabriella,” she says. “Sam's cousin? Sam Spade?” Pause. Not even a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Doesn't matter,” she says. “What can I get you, Phoenix?”
That one gets a response.
“It's just Nick,” he says. “Hmph. You know me and I don't know you. Sorry about this. I moved away and I …”
He loses track of the sentence, resumes staring at his fingernails. No gloves. And his coat is unbuttoned. Gabriella makes a mental note to remind him to do it up before he leaves, or he might not make it home.
“I know,” she says. “It's okay.” Smile. It won't fix anything, but it's all she has to offer. “What can I get you?”
“Redcap. No ice.”
She thinks about saying something like oh, that's popular tonight by way of making conversation, but she isn't sure Nick wants to talk, and anyway she has this vague idea that he and Con don't like each other. She takes the whisky down from the shelf, flicking Jack's wing as she goes and eliciting a playful snap at her fingers, and pours him a glass.
“I'm sorry about Tacoma,” she tells him, knowing that he probably doesn't want to hear it but unable not to tell him. “I really liked her.”
Nick clutches his glass with both hands, like he's afraid it might escape if given a chance.
“Mm,” he says. “So did I.”
He downs half the glass in one go and sets it down on the bar just a little too roughly to maintain the illusion that he's still in control of himself.
“They sent her kangaskhan home,” he says, talking to a point somewhere over her left shoulder. “No one's told her. She's broken three chairs.”
“Oh,” says Gabriella, lost. “That's … I'm sorry to hear that.”
“Mm.” The level in the glass drops again. “I had to get out,” says Nick. “I couldn't …”
He doesn't seem to realise that he hasn't finished the sentence. After a moment, he takes another drink.
“Did you know her?” he asks, still not quite managing to look at her face.
“Not that well. I know her friend Jodi.”
Nick frowns.
“Didn't even know she had a friend Jodi,” he mutters. “Shit.”
Ouch. Okay, wrong thing to say. But it's not Gabriella's place to out Jodi without her permission, so she can't explain herself.
“I'm sorry,” she says instead. “She was special.”
“That she was.” The glass is empty now. Already? Jesus. “Another one of these?”
There are politer ways to ask, but at least it's halfway to a full sentence. While Gabriella's turning towards the shelf, Aaron taps her on the arm and murmurs about sending him home after this next one, and she nods. She wasn't planning on letting him have more than two, anyway.
“Here you go,” she says. “Better make that your last, though.”
Nick frowns, and for a moment Gabriella thinks they're going to have to fight about it, but then he sighs and nods.
“You're probably right,” he agrees. “Can I sit here for a while?”
“Sure,” she says. “But you can't put off going home forever.”
“Maybe you're right,” he says, gulping his drink. “Gonna give it a bloody good try, though.”
He has no more to say, and Gabriella doesn't want to push him. She starts cleaning up, wiping down the bar and taking glasses out to be washed, and all the while keeps one eye on Nick, nursing his whisky at the end of the bar. Mostly, he doesn't seem to notice; once or twice, he sees her looking and looks back, raises his glass in an ironic salute.
“Kendrick,” he says, when she comes close again. At this point, he's one of just three remaining customers – soon to be two; Aaron and Steph are gently but firmly ejecting Norris York even as Nick speaks. “Gabriella Kendrick. You're new in town.”
“Hey, you do remember,” says Gabriella. “Been a long time now since anyone called me new, though.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He sighs. “When was that, nine years ago?”
“It was ten in September.”
“Ten years. Wow.” There is genuine amazement in his voice. “What brought you here, if you don't mind me asking?”
It's a fair question. Even ten years back, Mahogany wasn't doing that well. If you wanted work, it made more sense to move to Goldenrod or Olivine. But Gabriella is happy enough to answer; that Nick is even asking is a good sign that he's levelled out a little. And like she said, it's been ten years. She's got her response to that question down to a fine art by now.
“Me and my parents don't get along,” she says. “I wanted out. Sam had a motorbike and a place for me to sleep.”
“Ah. Right, you're Sam's cousin.” He hesitates. “You … don't look or sound like her at all.”
“Nobody looks like Sam,” says Gabriella. “And my parents were keen on elocution.” She smiles. “You don't sound like Annie.”
Nick's face darkens.
“Mm,” he grunts. “Too long spent hanging around with Kantan academics.” He tips the last few drops of whisky down his throat. “Bet she's still sitting there where I left her. Listening to that fucking kangaskhan banging on the walls.”
Gabriella starts.
“Nick …”
“Yeah, no, you're right.” He sighs. “She's upset, I just don't … how do you tell her a thing like that?”
Gabriella considers this for a moment. She's never had to deal with a pokémon whose partner has died before. But she's definitely had her share of difficult conversations.
“You go home,” she says, in the end. “You go home and you sit down and you say it.” She folds her arms, leans on the bar. “And every single time, afterwards, you find that the world didn't end after all. Sometimes you wish it had done, but it doesn't. And then the dust settles and nothing is the same, but it's what it has to be.”
Nick gives her a long look.
“You,” he says, “are smarter than half the bloody faculty at Yellowbrick. Do you know how annoying that is?”
“I think I have a pretty good idea.”
“Hmph.” Nick fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a crumpled crown note. “Here,” he says. “That cover it?”
“Just about. Redcap's a half-crown a glass.”
“Jesus. ****ing inflation.” Nick blinks. “Uh, sorry.”
“I've heard worse.”
“Hah. Bet you have. Anyway, uh, sorry, all I've got for a tip are florins.”
“Not a problem,” Gabriella assures him. Change them at the post office and she'll be doing well; the exchange rate is very much in the florin's favour these days.
“Great.” He gives her a handful of octagonal coins that feel flimsier than the round ones Gabriella is used to and stands up. “I guess I'd better get back,” he says. “You're right. Someone's got to tell her. And God knows nobody else is up to it.”
“Good luck,” says Gabriella. “Come by again if you want whisky and a push into a difficult conversation.”
The merest ghost of a smile flickers across Nick's lips.
“Maybe I will,” he says, fastening his coat. “Goodnight, Miss Kendrick.”
He leaves, a little more upright than when he left. Gabriella watches the door close behind him, imagining his return to the Spearing house and hoping the advice she gave him doesn't screw things up too badly, and returns her attention to the glasses. Got to concentrate now. Without customers to distract her, she can feel the fatigue creeping up on her again, and the last thing she needs is to fall asleep on her feet with an armful of pint glasses.
A few minutes after ten, Gabriella steps out into a night as black and cold as a banker's heart, as Sam would say, and feels herself wake up a little as the first breath of outside air chills her lungs. On her shoulder, Jack squawks and flips his head back and forth, scanning the street with his one eye. Old habit. Mahogany is usually a very safe town, but Jack has been at her side through night walks in much more dangerous places, and when it gets dark he's always ready for the possibility of violence.
If she's honest, Gabriella is thankful for it tonight. The later it gets, the harder it is not to think about the fact that someone in town is a murderer.
“Hey.”
Jack shrieks and takes off, wheeling around to strike with blue light dripping from his beak; Gabriella whirls, heart pounding halfway out of her chest, and sees―
“Oh my God, Sam, you scared the shit out of me,” she gasps.
“Uh, yeah, sorry.” Sam scratches her head. “Didn't mean to do that.”
Jack's water pulse fades and he settles back onto her shoulder with a thump, glaring at Sam as if he'd like to blast her anyway. She clicks her tongue at him and steps forward, patting Gabriella's arm.
“You okay?”
“I was, right up until you jumped out of the shadows like you were going to kill me.” She shakes her head. “God, Sam. You remember there's a murderer on the loose?”
Sam coughs.
“Yeah, well, I … hm. Sorry.”
“It's fine,” says Gabriella, searching for her self-control and relieved to find it still within arm's reach. “It's fine. Just – maybe don't hang around in the shadows like a mugger.”
“Maybe I am a mugger,” says Sam. “Maybe I'm a criminal who abducts helpless young women late at night and takes 'em away to my isolated home in the woods, where nobody can see all the terrible things I do to 'em.”
Gabriella has to smile. Trust Sam to turn it around.
“Are you going to abduct me, Miss Spade?” she asks.
“Maybe if you're good.” Sam shoves her gently with an elbow, making Jack screech and flare his wings. “I was at Dino's,” she says. “Thought I'd stop off on the way back to walk you home, Miss Kendrick. Like you said, there's a murderer on the loose.”
“How long were you waiting?”
“Not long. Ten minutes, maybe?”
“Ten minutes in this weather? Why didn't you come inside?”
Sam makes an awkward movement of her head.
“Wanted to surprise you.”
Gabriella sighs.
“Well, you certainly did that. Idiot.” She glances over her shoulder, making sure they really are alone, then grabs Sam's hand. “Romantic idiot, though,” she whispers. “It was sweet of you to come.”
“That's me,” says Sam. “Sweet to a fault.” She indicates the street ahead, one huge void flecked with tiny puddles of streetlight. “C'mon. Let's get back before they turn the lamps off.”
“Can't Morgan light the way?”
“She'll be pissed if I drag her out of her nice warm ball into this.” Sam waves a hand at the snow banked up against the buildings. “Ready when you are, Miss Kendrick.”
“I'm always ready, Miss Spade,” she says, and off they go.
It's cold. It's starting to snow. There's a killer in town, the Police Chief is an ass, and Gabriella is so tired she feels like she might actually pass out before they reach the station. But here, walking with Sam through this freezing December night – God, she could be on a beach in Hoenn with a cocktail in her hand and still, she couldn't be any happier.
“I love you, handsome,” she murmurs, so quietly that if it weren't for the way her breath steams in the air even she wouldn't be sure that she'd actually spoken.
But Sam knows, and while they are invisible in the space between the streetlights she turns her head upwards and brushes her lips against Gabriella's cheek.
“Pretty fond of you myself, kitten,” she replies, and they walk hand in hand into the night.