Cutlerine
Gone. Not coming back.
FOURTEEN: THE HUMAN CONDITION
TACOMA
Looking back on it now, the escape has an unreal quality to it, like a 3AM nightmare considered over a lunchtime beer on Saturday afternoon. Tacoma isn't even sure how they got out, honestly. She remembers Nikki running, Lothian galloping strenuously at her side, unable to spread his wings; she remembers Jodi sealing the secret door, stumbling back out into the bitter Mahogany night. She remembers the slow, silent walk back to her house, scarcely able to breathe for fear they'd hear the roar again and look up to see the shadow of those noisome tongues against the stars, ready to snatch them up and draw them into that awful mouth.
She remembers the mouth most of all. Remembers seeing the outline of the beast's spine and ribs through the sickly blue flesh of its palate. No organs in there, no sense, no anything that matched what Tacoma knows of biology. Just a hunger that could swallow Mahogany whole.
If those jaws had closed on Tacoma, she has no doubt that she'd be dead all over again, for real this time. Not even a ghost is coming back from that. If they'd closed on Jodi …
She tries not to think about this, but of course it's all she can think about.
She remembers so much, so vividly. But back in Jodi's room, with no evidence of any of it but Jodi's missing torch (in the pit now, lost for ever) and the dust all over her clothes, it feels like none of it could have really happened at all. There's no such thing as nightmarish mouth-chested monsters, right? And there definitely isn't one trapped in a razored nest of shattered spacetime buried in the remains of a fifteen-hundred-year-old hill fort accessed through a secret door in the back room of her local fucking grocery store.
Right?
Jodi closes her bedroom door and leans against it, breathing hard. She looks at Tacoma.
Tacoma looks back.
“That happened,” she says.
“Are you sure?” asks Tacoma.
“No.” Jodi pulls off her gloves with trembling hands, though she fumbles and drops them before she can put them on the desk. “Or maybe … I mean it had to be real, right? I felt it. All that hunger.” She touches her wrist, like the echo of the pain is still there. “My empathy doesn't work in dreams.”
“Right.” Pause. Should she …? Probably. “Hey, sit down,” says Tacoma. “You look beat.”
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “You're right.”
She shrugs off her coat and climbs stiffly onto her bed, Lothian going with her to help her along. He settles himself curled around her, his tail and head both draped over her lap, and she busies her hands brushing the dirt from his mane.
Nikki's probably dusty too, but unfortunately Tacoma's going to have to leave her to deal with that one herself. She'd like to soothe her – she can hear her pulse racing through the wall of her chest, right behind her head – but for the moment just staying here and not thinking about how Jodi could have been eaten is taking everything she's got.
“Well,” says Jodi, chewing her lip. “I think … I think we know where the bodies go.”
Tacoma nods; she's figured it out too. People going missing. A monster from another world. Jodi thought they were starving that thing, but now they've seen it Tacoma figures maybe that's just how it feels all the time; maybe it can't ever fill the emptiness in its impossible chest. And so many people disappear in these woods, and so few bodies are found.
“But then why did they put your body in the river?” asks Jodi. “I don't know what that thing's meant to eat, but I'm betting it'll take anything. They could've got rid of all the evidence right away.”
Tacoma shakes her head.
“Would've been a waste,” she says. “They'd just figured out Nick was onto them, right? Knew he was trying to do his thing with the spiritomb rock. And they know he and Con don't get on, right? You feed Con some evidence that the guy he hates most might've murdered his niece …”
“Oh my God.” Jodi's jaw actually drops slightly. Tacoma has never seen that happen before – wasn't even sure it actually did, outside of books and TV. “They deliberately set him up?”
“Why not?”
“No reason, I guess.” Jodi sighs. “I know people are awful, I shouldn't be surprised, I just … these are people we know, Tacoma. People like – God, Lothian saw Harry coming out of there, didn't he?” Lothian's ears twitch. “Nice people,” she says, sadly. “People I thought – people I thought better of.”
Tacoma isn't sure what to say; she hadn't even thought about that. Christ. Imagine that: Harry, smiling the way he does when he welcomes her off the train, standing around by that pit and talking to his friends about how it would be a criminal waste of a good corpse to throw Tacoma to the beast. Kill two birds with one stone, he'd say. Stop the rock reaching Nick – and stop Nick for good.
“Jesus,” she says, and something in her voice must sound bad, because Nikki clutches her a little tighter when she hears it. “You're right.”
“And that thing,” murmurs Jodi, hardly listening. “I don't even know … I mean, I know there are weird pokémon out there, but―”
“That wasn't a pokémon,” says Tacoma flatly. “The way that pit was fractured? With that thing stuck in it? I don't think that thing's from our dimension.” She shudders, and can't even bring herself to feel ashamed about it. “You saw, right? How … empty it was?”
“I saw,” says Jodi. “I saw.”
Silence. The wind picks up outside, begins to moan and whine around the lampposts in the street.
“I don't know what to do,” says Jodi, sounding close to tears. “Tacoma, I just … I don't know what to do any more.”
Lothian whines and curls tighter around her. Tacoma just stares. This is Jodi, right? This is the girl who's carried her through all of this, who's never fazed by anything, who has psychic equanimity and the kind of courage Tacoma can only dream of. Sure, Tacoma has sensed her distress, through that psychic link – but Jodi's always had an answer, even if all she can say is let's watch TV for a bit, we'll think of something later.
She hates herself for thinking this. Jodi is human, isn't she? Human, and only a handful of days older than Tacoma. She can't be any more at home with all this.
But if Jodi wasn't so nice she'd say that this was an unhelpful kind of thought, right, so Tacoma tries to swallow it and focus on something more useful.
“Hey,” she says. “Give me to Jodi, Nikki. Now,” she adds, when Nikki hesitates, and listens to her sniff in irritation as she deposits Tacoma in Jodi's arms. “Jodi,” she says, growing bigger, trying somehow to extrude some sort of misty arm to put around her. “It's gonna be okay.”
“Is it?” Jodi shifts Tacoma into one hand so she can wipe her eyes. “The only way I can see this ending is everything stays the same. I don't think even my parents would believe me if I told them what I saw, and sure as hell Con won't. He thinks I'm insane anyway.”
Her bitterness filters through the link, sharper and more acerbic than anything Tacoma has ever seen outside of a mirror.
“Who cares what Con thinks,” she starts to say, but Jodi doesn't let her finish.
“Me,” she says. “Because I'm an empath, Tacoma, and I don't get a choice about it. And because I'm pretty sure we can't take on the chapter house ourselves. Unless you have a plan?”
She says it in an angry sort of way that makes it clear she does not expect Tacoma to say yes. And sure enough, Tacoma doesn't – but she has something else to say instead.
“No, I don't,” she tells her, looking up into her eyes. “But Nick did. And if he was looking for a way into the chapter house, he was ready to put it into action.”
Jodi's eyes widen.
“What?”
“We have to speak to him,” says Tacoma. “And we will, okay? Say you want to visit. Hell, they'll probably ask you to, since you're psychic and all. I'll think of some excuse. And then” (another of those fake inward breaths) “then you'll get the truth out of him. I know you will. You almost got it the other day, right?”
“Are you sure?” asks Jodi, with a kind of nervous self-doubt that reminds Tacoma of the way she took the news that she was beautiful.
“Of course you will,” says Tacoma. “I'll be there too, yeah? We'll figure something out.” She stretches her thread as far as it will go, trying to bring herself level with Jodi's eyeline. Can't quite reach, but whatever. Close enough. “We're not beaten,” she says, and although even she can't say whether she believes this or not it sounds so good in her mouth, like something a real person would say. “You're not beaten,” she adds. “Not yet.”
A weak, embarrassed kind of smile.
“You have a lot of faith in me,” says Jodi, wiping her eyes again. “Sweet of you.”
“Yeah, well, you're pretty sweet yourself,” retorts Tacoma, mock-mean to hide the fact that she's gone a deeper purple. “You, uh … deserve sweet things.”
Now Jodi's blushing too. Part of Tacoma wants to just tear into the both of them for being such sentimental dorks, but a larger part is too awestruck and afraid of the fact that she did a good thing for once to dare ruin the moment.
“Thank you,” she says, trying to figure out how to hug Tacoma without dropping her on Lothian's head and having to give up halfway. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't be giving up like that.”
Tacoma snorts.
“You literally can't give up worse than I've done,” she says, hoping it sounds like a joke and not just bitterness. “Look, it's … God, it's like quarter past two. Let's just go to bed, okay?
“That's probably the best idea either of us have come up with all night,” says Jodi. “Right. Nikki is glaring like she wants you back, so―”
“Let her glare a minute,” says Tacoma, giving up on the idea of a hug and just leaning into Jodi's shoulder instead. “She's gotta learn to share me sometime.”
So they let her glare, and Lothian quietly pulls back and leaves them to it.
It's been a fuck of a bad night, all things considered, and tomorrow doesn't look like it's going to be much better, but Tacoma can't deny that this helps.
Knock knock.
“Jodi?”
Ella's voice. Sounds wrong, somehow.
Tacoma vanishes back into the rock and opens her window again, a sick dread in her heart. As usual, she was up first, watching fresh snow build up on Jodi's windowsill; it's past eleven now, but Jodi and the pokémon are still asleep. All that creeping around in the dark had to catch up with them eventually, Tacoma supposes.
Listening to Ella now, she has a horrible feeling that it might be about to catch up with them in another way, too.
“Jodi, uh … sorry, but it's kinda important.”
The blanket nest shuffles and stirs.
“Ella?”
“Hi. Yeah. Um … the cops are here?”
Jodi sits up suddenly, wide awake. Her eyes do not leave Tacoma's rock.
“What?” she asks.
“The cops are here. They said it was about Tacoma.”
Okay. Okay, maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe they just need a psychic to have a chat with Nick.
Maybe.
Tacoma begins to pick her lips.
“O-kay,” says Jodi, brows knitting together. “Um … tell them I'll be right down.”
“Okay.” Tacoma hears no footsteps: Ella's still there. “Everything's okay, isn't it?”
“Yes, Ella,” says Jodi. “Everything's fine, I promise.”
“Right. Right, cool, I'll – I'll go tell them.”
“Thank you.”
Tacoma waits to hear Ella go down the stairs, then sticks her head out.
“I'm coming,” she says.
“Wasn't gonna try and stop you,” replies Jodi. “Talk to Nikki, okay? I don't think we can take her.”
They say these things easily, naturally, as if making plans to meet up for coffee later. As if it were all just a matter of logistics.
If there were anything left in Tacoma's stomach, she thinks she'd probably be sick.
Ten minutes later, they're both on their way downstairs, Nikki left unwillingly in Jodi's room and Lothian stalking on ahead. Tacoma can't actually see – she's back in Jodi's bag again – but she keeps the link open anyway, watching lipstick and tissues tumble over her vision while she strains her ears to hear who it is that's turned up.
“Hello, Jodi.” Byrne Winter. Tacoma doesn't have much of an opinion about her; she's the first female cop in Mahogany and possibly all of north Johto, which is definitely some kind of milestone, but she also has a dragonair – and that has always struck Tacoma as suspicious. There's something annoyingly superior about people from the Blackthorn dragon clan. Like they think pure tribal blood and a big scaly partner make them better than you.
“Hi, Sergeant Winter,” says Jodi. “Sergeant Brennan. What's this about?”
Simeon too, then. Him, Tacoma actively dislikes, if only because he ratted her out to her parents once when he caught her drinking stolen beer in one of the abandoned trailers in the Cedarshade development when she was fifteen.
“Tacoma,” says Byrne. “Would you mind coming with us to the station? There are a couple things we need to discuss, in light of recent events.”
“You mean Nick?”
“We really can't talk about it here,” says Simeon. “I'll fill you in at the station.”
“Okay,” says Jodi. “Will this take long?”
“No. Shouldn't do.”
“Fine. You hang on a sec, Ella, I'll be back in a minute.”
“Okay,” says Ella, nervously. “Sure.”
The ride to the station is horribly, unnervingly quiet. The only one with any desire to break the silence is Lothian, who clicks occasionally and gets a telepathic answer from Jodi that Tacoma senses without properly hearing. Without being able to see any landmarks, she has no idea how long it takes; all she can be sure of is that she has far too much time to think.
Did that torch really fall in the pit? Or did someone see it? And if they did, if they knew – would the kind of person who could frame Nick for Tacoma's murder be ready to throw Jodi to the cops as well?
The entrance is in the store. Sarah knew what the chapter house was. Oh hi Jackie, Tacoma imagines her saying, phone against her ear and Jodi's torch in her hand. No, I'm afraid I'm calling on business. I think I might have had a break-in …
Tacoma runs out of skin tabs to pull off her lips, and starts probing the wounds on her hand instead.
After what seems like hours, during which time Tacoma successfully manages to make all of her knuckles start bleeding again, she finally hears the engine turn off and the doors open. Doors, the stamping off of snow from boots, words with Jackie – and then, just like Tacoma was afraid of, Con.
“Hello,” he says, and from the reaction in Jodi's mind Tacoma knows his omission of her name is one hundred per cent deliberate. “I'll take it from here, Byrne.”
“Chief Wicke,” says Jodi. “What's this all about?”
“I'll explain. Can you leave Lothian out here?”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it,” he says, cool as the snow outside. “Thank you.”
A nervous little pause, then a sigh.
“Lothi? I need you to … yeah, I know. I know! But you have to, okay?”
“Caradoc and I will look after him,” says Byrne, to the distinctive sound of a ball opening. “Won't we?”
Whatever response Caradoc has, it's silent. Figures. Dragonair aren't really known for their voices.
“Okay,” says Jodi, and now there is just the faintest hint of a tremor in her voice. “Lothi? Please.”
He hisses furiously, but apparently he agrees. Tacoma hears boots on tiled floors, a door closing, chairs being pulled up.
“Thank you for coming out this morning,” says Con. “I appreciate it.”
“Sure,” says Jodi. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about now?”
The silence stretches out, like a knife being pulled slowly across a throat. Tacoma jams her fingernail deep into the broken skin over her knuckle, feels the slick hardness of her bones.
Someone puts something on the table. Jodi inhales sharply.
“Do you recognise this?” asks Con.
The torch. Tacoma knew it. They left the torch and Sarah found it and―
“If I'm not much mistaken, it belonged to your grandfather,” he continues, and Tacoma pauses in her exploration of her wounds, startled. How on earth would Con know that? “And then to your mother, before she quit. Now, I think, it belongs to you.”
Wait. That's not the torch.
Jodi's lighter? Tacoma didn't even know she had it on her last night. Did it fall from her pocket when Nikki grabbed her to run away?
“Do you know where this was found?”
She doesn't answer. Tacoma can't tell if she's afraid or just plain stubborn.
“I'm waiting,” says Con. He still hasn't said Jodi's name even once. He knows, right? He knows exactly how much of his intent she can sense, and he's levering it against her.
Christ. What Tacoma wouldn't give to leap out of the stone now, cut the lights and scare him shitless with the blazing of her eyes in the dark.
“I don't know,” says Jodi, at last. Her voice sounds strong, still. Somehow. “Are you going to tell me, or are we going to sit here all day and stare at each other?”
Con pauses for a moment before he answers, just long enough to indicate that he is not at all impressed.
“In the back room of the store,” he says. “Sarah called us early this morning.”
Fucking called it! Tacoma grimaces, senses the purple flames all around her flaring up with her anger. Goddamn Sarah and the goddamn chapter house. They knew Con hated Nick, and they know he doesn't like Jodi, either. And most of all, they know that he is a small-town cop right down to the core of his tedious little soul, and given a piece of evidence will pursue it doggedly to the obvious conclusion.
“Right,” says Jodi. “What was it doing there?”
Even she's struggling to sound unafraid now. Not hard to see why. This is the kind of trouble that sticks, in Mahogany. Everyone knows everyone. And that means everyone feels entitled to judge.
Besides. Michelle and León would be disappointed, and considering the kind of relationship Jodi has with them, Tacoma feels like that would hurt her most of all.
“Well, I was hoping that you could tell me,” says Con mildly. “I have to say, I was pretty surprised. You're not the type to do something like this.”
Again, no answer. Now Jodi's fear is strong enough that Tacoma can sense it through the link, sour and dry as sloes.
Con sighs.
“Okay,” he says. “Can I take a guess? You're not a thief. You've been looking into Tacoma's death, still. Even after you were warned against it. And for some reason, you thought that Sarah was connected, so you started poking around in the store.”
Tacoma hears skin rubbing against something hard: Jodi, rolling the handle of her cane between her fingers. She's probably chewing her lip too, right. Can't blame her. Con is closer to the truth than she'd like.
“How d'you know I was warned?” asks Jodi warily.
“Because I asked Gabriella to talk to you,” says Con. “It's my job to notice things.”
Okay. Gabriella didn't actually do that though, did she? So not so close to the truth after all.
Small comfort, honestly. Tacoma does not like where this is going at all.
“So,” he says. “I'm going to take that question as confirmation that I was right. I'm glad we're not denying things here.” The rubbing sound gets faster, punctuated with clicks as Jodi's cane taps against the edge of the table. “You are going to stop this,” Con says, quietly and clearly. “You are going to stop this now, and then I won't tell Sarah who this belongs to. Or your parents.” Pause. “Do we have a deal?”
A clatter: Jodi's hand has slipped and her cane has fallen to the floor.
“Let me get that for you,” says Con, over the scraping of the chairs, and then Tacoma hears a sharp intake of breath and feels Jodi's panic flood the connection, so hard and fast it's all she can do not to spring out of the rock to her defence. Two agonising seconds of silence pass – and then there's Jodi's voice, small and fearful:
“Please give me back my cane.”
Tacoma never got it, before now. Never really understood what it was that Jodi's cane meant. But trapped in this rock, dependent on her partner or her friend to take her places, it all starts to make sense.
She isn't even sure if Jodi can crawl, if maybe she still isn't meant to put weight on her left knee. By holding her cane on the other side of the table, Con might as well have cut her hamstrings.
He leaves her hanging for a long moment. Tacoma imagines him looking at her, at the cane: oh, this old thing? and a smile like a shark's, vapid, dangerous. She clenches her bleeding fist hard, the last of the scabs cracking open again, and then just as she thinks she can't hold herself back any longer she hears him speak:
“Sure,” he says. “And we'll both forget about this. Yes?”
The rustling of some quick, desperate movement.
“Yes,” says Jodi fervently. “Yes. Okay. I'll just … I'll go home.”
“That's a good idea,” says Con seriously. “Don't let me catch you here again. I'm not going to cover for you twice.”
He says it like he's doing her a favour. Like he actually believes this, like he did any of this by accident.
Strange feeling, wanting to hurt someone else as much as she wants to hurt herself, but Tacoma supposes there's a first time for everything.
“Right,” says Jodi. “I'm sorry. I was stupid.”
“No,” says Tacoma fiercely, knowing she shouldn't distract her but too angry to hold her tongue. “Don't apologise to him!”
She doesn't get an answer, which strikes her as fair enough. If Jodi even hears her, she definitely has more important things on her mind right now.
“I get it,” Con tells Jodi. “You're upset about your friend. We all make mistakes.” He waits for her to make some kind response to his attempt at amicability, but none is forthcoming. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, I don't see any reason to keep you here. You can go now.”
Jodi says nothing. Tacoma listens to her breathing as they make their way back down the corridor to the lobby, and then to Lothian's anxious scratching and squeaking as he checks to see if his partner's okay. He doesn't sound convinced to Tacoma, but then she figures she probably doesn't know enough to tell for sure.
“Someone missed you,” says Byrne. Jodi mumbles a response that Tacoma doesn't catch. “Sure,” says Byrne. “Seems that way.”
“All right.” Con's voice again, making Tacoma's gut twist with hate. “Byrne can drop you back―”
“Actually, there's one thing I want to do before I go,” says Jodi. She sounds better now, with her cane in her hand and her partner at her side. Probably Lothian could take Con and Moira, if it came to it. Maybe not Caradoc, but still. Hard not to feel a little better with a dragon in your corner. “I'd like to visit Nick.”
“What?” Byrne sounds like she wasn't expecting that. “Jodi, I don't think that that's―”
“Hang on a moment,” Con interrupts. “Why?”
This is Tacoma's cue, of course. Jodi's sweet, but you can't trust her to have a good story prepared.
“Because you want to see him for yourself,” she says, raising her voice a little. “Because you want to know if it's true.”
“Because I want to see for myself,” repeats Jodi. “Because I want to know if it's … you know.”
“Jodi,” says Byrne. “I really don't―”
“No, let her.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” says Con. “Let her see his guilt.”
Tacoma snorts.
“Jesus Christ,” she mutters. “What circle of hell is it that cops go to when they die, again?”
“This will put an end to it,” says Con. “You hear me, kid?”
“Yes,” says Jodi. “I hear you, Chief Wicke.”
There's that old steel in her voice again. Feels good to hear it, after that awful interview.
“Okay,” says Byrne. “Right this way, Jodi.”
Footsteps, slithering, scratching. Tacoma worries her busted knuckles and broods.
“Are you okay?” she asks, when the silence becomes unbearable. “Sorry for interrupting.”
Jodi's answer comes a bit too fast for comfort.
It's okay. I'm okay. He just …
“I know. I heard.”
I feel wrong, says Jodi, sounding like she did after her last talk with Con, way back at the start of all this, but before Tacoma can come up with any kind of answer Byrne tells her that she's going to have to leave Lothian out here and Jodi breaks off contact to argue with him again. Byrne then has to check her bag, and of course she asks about the rock, but fortunately it seems she doesn't recognise what it is and accepts Jodi's lie about focusing stones; Tacoma hears it all without really listening to it, suddenly overcome with nerves. Nick's right there. Her uncle is right there on the other side of a door, and why the hell did she even decide to come, Jodi doesn't need Tacoma's fear dragging her down―
Do you want to talk to him? asks Jodi.
“Oh,” says Tacoma. “Um. No. No, it's … it's fine.” She can't show him what she is. Even if he knows about spiritomb, she just can't do that to him. “I mean, I can, I guess, if – if you need me to … but I don't know if they have a security camera down here? So, uh, maybe it's not such a―”
It's okay, says Jodi, infuriatingly nice. It's okay. I won't make you do anything you're not ready for.
Tacoma Spearing, niece of the year. She picks anxiously at her knuckles, and waits with bated breath as Jodi makes her way down the passage.
“Ten minutes,” says Byrne, opening a heavy metal door. “I hope you find what you need, Jodi.”
“Thanks,” says Jodi. “Okay.”
The door closes. Only one set of footsteps now, and the click of a cane.
“Hi,” says Jodi, after a while, and Tacoma knows they are no longer alone. “I came to visit.”
For the longest time there's no answer at all, and then a sigh so painfully familiar it makes Tacoma's heart feel like it might split in two.
“Well,” says Nick. “Not sure how you talked your way in here, Jodi, but here you are, I guess.”
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “Guess I am.”
This is a different kind of silence to the one in the interview room. This is the silence of a grown man trying to find the courage to admit to a teenage girl that he's fucked up.
Assuming Nick thinks of Jodi as a girl, that is. Tacoma really hopes he of all people does, but after Con she can't help but be suspicious.
“I don't know how long they're gonna let me have, so I'll cut to the chase,” she says. “I had Lothian tail you after I left on Saturday.”
“What? You …” Nick breaks off, laughs hollowly to himself. “Christ. I knew you were smart. Don't know why I thought I'd talked you round.”
“Call it insurance,” says Jodi, and despite herself Tacoma has to smile. For once, Jodi's managed a halfway snappy retort. “I saw where the entrance is, Nick. And I … I went in there last night.”
Pause. Tacoma wonders what she'd say, if she was Nick and some kid told her that she'd broken into the chapter house. She isn't sure she'd have any words. She definitely isn't surprised that Nick doesn't seem to.
“You saw it,” he says.
It's not a question.
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “We did. Me and Lothi and Nikki. And now, Nick … now I don't know what to do.”
Tacoma can hear all of it in her voice: the pain of the beast, the two-in-the-morning despair, the second-hand nausea from Con, the panic of having her cane taken. And yet she's here, right? Still here, still asking all the right questions. Tacoma would have gone home to get drunk and hurt herself long ago.
“Okay,” says Nick. Can he hear it too? Or is it just that he knows what it is to see that creature, that nobody can come away from it unchanged? “I don't think I can in good conscience keep hiding this stuff from you. So.”
He doesn't finish the thought. Maybe there's a gesture there that Tacoma missed, or maybe that's just all there is. So what? So nothing. So.
“What is it?” asks Jodi.
Nick sighs.
“A visitor,” he says. “I don't know, exactly. Some dimensions aren't well understood. Most of them, even. Don't know what kind of things might live there. But the general term for things like that – things that have come here from another world by accident – is a faller.”
He sounds so professional. For the first time, Tacoma can imagine her uncle at the head of a lecture hall, notes in one hand and a stick of chalk in the other. Students at Yellowbrick can attend any lectures they want, provided they also attend those compulsory for their subject, but she's never gone to any of Nick's. It would have been weird. Like it is now.
“A faller,” repeats Jodi, testing out the word. “So it wasn't them? They didn't … I don't know, summon it?”
“Don't think so. More a case of right place, right time. Wormhole – that's a portal – opens up, poor bastard falls in and gets stuck in the doorway, so to speak. Then some poorer bastard finds it, and well.” Nick sighs again. “Doubt you of all people need telling that people do terrible things when they're afraid.”
In the old days – way before Tacoma's time, back in the days of the feudal lords – they used to build temples when they found places that seemed holy, touched in some way by Ho-oh or Lugia. Where fire and flood are close to the surface of things, as Alistair once put it in one of his more interesting sermons. A pure spring. A cave of glow-worms. A forest grove. These things were built upon to keep them separate and divine.
What would the people who did things like that have done if they had found the monster? If they had found something connected to neither Ho-oh nor Lugia, some other power so vast and alien they could never hope to understand or conquer it?
Look at the monster. See the mouth, see that its whole body is shaped by hunger.
How do you worship a thing like that?
Tacoma thinks of a drifter with a movie star name snatched from her trailer, falling past the crystal spines towards that gaping chest. She thinks of the kid who ran away back when she and Jodi were in school. She thinks of hikers, of wanderers, of loners without anyone to mourn their passing.
“How long?” asks Jodi, her thoughts evidently on the same track.
“God knows,” says Nick. “Longer than the town. Maybe it's why people settled here in the first place. Not like this place has much else to recommend it.”
The sound of his voice makes Tacoma shift uneasily on her sarcophagus. Somehow this kind of sourness is much worse coming from someone other than her. Worse still from someone like Nick.
“Sorry,” he says, after a brief and awkward silence. “I'm, uh. Not at my best right now.”
“It's okay,” says Jodi. “I don't think either of us is really doing great.”
“Hah. Yeah. Guess not.” Nick takes a deep, steadying breath. “Jodi, can I ask you something?”
“Okay,” she says, wary. “What is it?”
“Why did you come here?”
Jodi hesitates. Tacoma wants to help, wants to come up with some kind of reason for her, but she can't seem to speak, all her breath trapped deep in her throat by some malignant force.
“I … know you had a plan,” says Jodi. “And I can't let this continue.”
“No,” says Nick. “You think I'm going to ask a kid to do this? I know I've been irresponsible, but―”
“You called me an adult on Saturday, Nick. Can't have it both ways. And besides,” she continues, before he can reply, “you started all this when you were my age, right? Back when Mae West died and you broke in yourself.”
“How did you …?”
“Like you said,” says Jodi shortly. “Smart. Do you want help or not?”
Tacoma stares into the dark so hard her eyes sting. She wants Nick to relent, because this is what Jodi wants; she wants Nick to refuse, because if she has to send Jodi back down into the chapter house she is going to smash her other hand too. She wants Nick to relent, because saving Mahogany is the right thing to do. She wants him to refuse, because this whole thing is terrible and she can't stand to be stuck in it a moment longer. She wants him to relent. She wants him to refuse. She wants―
“Yeah, okay,” says Nick. He sounds tired, and ashamed. As he should be, honestly. As Tacoma is. “I want you to know I'd never ask if there was any other―”
“Well, there isn't,” says Jodi. “Tell me, Nick. How do we end this?”
“Close the wormhole,” he replies. “That's what I've been doing all this time. Whole reason I went into dimensional studies was to find a way to get rid of that thing.”
There seems to be something hard gripping the inside of Tacoma's chest. Nick's a hero after all. Ten years – more than ten, even – of working secretly against the chapter house and its murderous inhabitants. Collecting materials and knowledge, biding his time until he was ready to drive his lance directly into his opponent's heart.
Tacoma knows there's a gap between the way kids see adults and the way adults really are. She knows there's no such thing as heroes, only people who are less defeated than the rest.
Still. Her uncle has dedicated his life to defeating this evil. That's something to be proud of, at least.
“Took a long time,” he's explaining, slipping deeper into lecturer mode. “Lot of trial and error, too. Most of my colleagues are interested in how we might open wormholes, not close them. For a while I investigated ghost-types – dusknoir can move on the shadow plane, spiritomb contain a small dimension inside them. That, uh … that's why my contact sent me that rock. It's inert, see – someone found a way to seal it off, stop the ghosts from coming out. The Ghost Studies people thought it was something to do with taking the lead spirit out, somehow, but―”
He stops. Just like that. Tacoma knows this kind of stop; it's the kind you make when you suddenly realise that your cleverness has run away with you, and you have for the last five minutes been so focused on your idea that you have forgotten to feel the emotions you were meant to.
Faced with that, she almost doesn't even notice that she's finally learned why the rock swallowed her up in the first place.
“Doesn't matter,” he says, his disgust oozing through his words like mud trickling into shoes. “I thought I could learn something from it and I was wrong. So I moved onto the next thing, and I forgot I'd asked my contact in Ghost Studies if I could study the rock. I wasn't expecting him to send it to me, I really wasn't.”
It's her, isn't it? He hasn't mentioned her, but of course that's what it is. He wants to tell Jodi the truth about her dead friend, confess his sins in the hope it might buy him some kind of redemption.
God. Maybe fucked-up just runs in the family.
“I'm not gone,” she whispers, picking her knuckles. “I'm sorry …”
Something warm and bright begins to glow inside her, fighting the hardness gripping her chest. Jodi must have heard her. That's pretty bloody embarrassing, really, but not so much she's going to argue with her if she wants to use her psionics to help out.
“I'm sorry,” says Jodi. Tacoma thinks she's talking to her for a second, and is faintly surprised to hear Nick answer.
“Yeah, so am I, Jodi. So am I.” He speaks quickly, viciously, then stops. When he starts again, his voice is kinder and more measured. “Look, it's over now. What I was trying to get at was that I did find a way, in the end. When I went to Alola – I really did do that, by the way, just not when I said I did – I got the last of what I needed from the experts there. It's the world capital for extradimensional research.”
“I didn't know that.”
“Not a lot of people do. But there was one researcher there whose paper I'd read, and … well, the specifics don't matter. I came back, set up shop close enough to Mahogany to monitor the wormhole but not so close that the chapter house would find out and come for me, and built myself a machine for closing it.”
This is great news, it really is. It's just that Tacoma suspects that making use of it is going to involve breaking into the chapter house. And maybe, maybe, there's a happy ending here where nobody ends up dead and the cult falls apart without its horrific ravening totem – or maybe they have a guard on the door now, or they figure out it was Jodi who did it and send someone after her for revenge, and then Tacoma has to spend the rest of eternity with the fact that no, she really did destroy Jodi after all.
“You did?” asks Jodi, none of Tacoma's fear evident in her voice. “So where is it? Did the cops―?”
“No, I hid the machine before they arrived,” he says. “In the drawer of Tacoma's bedside table. Red button, blue button, drop it in the pit and get as far away as you can.”
“That simple, huh.” That's not relief in Jodi's voice. Tacoma couldn't tell you what it is, but it's not relief.
“That simple,” confirms Nick. “I didn't want to get it wrong.”
“No,” says Jodi. “I guess not. So … red button, blue button? And then it's all over?”
“Some of it. The bit about feeding people to a monster from another world, anyway.”
“And you? Will you be okay?”
Pause.
“That, uh … that depends. I've called my – my lawyer, and―”
Behind them, that heavy door clunks open again, and Nick falls silent.
“Time's up,” says Byrne. “Satisfied?”
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “I've seen enough.”
Looks like she's finally learning how to lie. She sounds exactly like an empath who's just tasted someone's guilt at killing his niece: shocked, exhausted, pained.
Or maybe it's too good to be an act. She must be feeling some of it for real, after everything that's just happened.
“All right,” says Byrne. “Back for you in a moment, Nick. Ecruteak forensics have just got back to us about that cabin of yours, and we have some more questions.”
“You know where to find me,” he says sourly.
“Come on, Jodi. I'll drop you home. Your sister will be worried.”
“Thanks, but I'll walk.” The metallic boom of the door closing. “I have a couple of errands to run in town, and I'd rather not walk back here again.” Momentary hesitation. “Can I use the phone and tell her?”
“Sure,” says Byrne. Her voice is friendly in a way that Tacoma doesn't trust at all. “I don't see why not.”
“Thank you.”
They keep walking. After a few seconds, when it seems unlikely that the conversation is going to start again, Tacoma dares to speak.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
No, says Jodi. Are you?
Tacoma snorts.
“What the hell do you think?”
Yeah, says Jodi. I honestly don't know what I expected you to say.
Ella is scared. Of course she is: she's thirteen, afraid that someone's going to murder her or her sister in the dark the way they did Tacoma, and she just saw Jodi get gently but firmly taken away by the cops in connection to a murder. But she also trusts Jodi, and she wants to be calmed down, so after a few minutes of soft tones and soothing lies she seems to accept that although everything seems terrible it is, in fact, okay.
Fine. Next job.
They don't discuss this, although they both know what it is they're planning on doing. Talking about it seems dangerous, somehow, like if the idea gets out there into the world it might run off and leave them on their own. Instead, Jodi tells Tacoma that she's in a little bit of trouble right now, and could Tacoma talk to her, please? Just keep talking? And Tacoma has no goddamn clue what to say, but she knows Jodi still has Con in her head, still has a man carving his hate into the back of her skull like he did his initials into that tree in Three Pines; and so Tacoma starts talking about her parasitology course for some reason, about Professor Leadbeater and his obsession with a particular kind of quasi-living rust that infects steel-types; and it sounds completely inane even to her, but she keeps talking, and Jodi keeps on trudging towards Long Avenue, emitting sporadic uh-huhs, and then at last Jodi sighs and says okay.
Thank you, she says. That would've been way harder on my own.
Tacoma shrugs.
“'S fine,” she says. “I'm your friend. You know.”
Yeah. I know. She sighs. We're here, though. And, um, I won't be able to hear or speak to you while we're in there, since I'll need to concentrate on not having the grief melt my brain. So if you need anything, any kind of preparations … now's the time.
Like what, Tacoma almost says, but she is determined not to be an asshole this time, so instead she shakes her head and forces herself to put her bleeding hand down at her side.
“Let's go,” she said. “Get this over with.”
Okay. Can you help me think of a reason to get up in your room? It has to be something urgent. 'Cause Nick just got arrested on suspicion of your murder and honestly this is the worst possible time to turn up here uninvited.
“Oh. Right.” Why didn't she think of that? “Uh … Nikki's acting up. She has this soft toy she likes – you know how kangaskhan like to hold things? It's this cuddly teddiursa my aunt who doesn't know what I like gave me when I was a kid – and you think it would help. You know it was probably in my luggage, but you have to check my room anyway, because things are so bad with her right now.”
Brilliant. Thanks. Brief pause. Are you ready?
She's already asked, but fine.
“Yeah.”
Okay.
Knock knock. A long pause. Tacoma steels herself for another familiar voice―
“Oh,” says someone she doesn't know at all. A girl, by the sound of it. “J-Jodi.”
“Hi, Charlie,” says Jodi. “I'm really sorry, I know this is a bad time, but―”
“Yeah. It kind of is. I―” Charlie (whoever that is) breaks off and starts again, a little quieter. “I'm really not meant to let anyone―”
“Please,” says Jodi. “Just hear me out. It's Nikki – she's really acting up, like I think she might break something, and I think if I can just get her that teddiursa doll she likes, I could probably calm her down.”
“I don't know – Mum was really clear that I shouldn't let …”
“I won't disturb anyone, I promise. I'll just come in, go check Tacoma's room, and then leave. Please, Charlie.”
Tacoma holds her breath …
“Okay. Okay, if it's just for a moment.”
… and lets it out again.
All right. They're in. Thank God. There wasn't really any sort of backup plan here.
“Thank you,” says Jodi, with that special earnestness that only she can manage. “C'mon, Lothi. Quietly now.”
The door closes, and three sets of footsteps make their way across the hall. Tacoma listens hard, hoping to hear some evidence of her family even as she dreads it, but there's nothing. No TV or radio in the background or anything.
Possibly the silence is actually worse than if there was something.
“Here,” says Charlie pointlessly, leading Jodi upstairs. “Her room is on the end there.”
“I know,” says Jodi. “Thank you.”
She doesn't hesitate. Tacoma hears the door open and knows she is right now in her room again, at last. Two weeks late and without her suitcase or her body, but she's here.
She feels less strongly about this than she thought she would. It just doesn't seem real, not while she's in the rock and unable to see anything but the inside of Jodi's bag.
“Okay,” murmurs Jodi. “Bedside table …”
A drawer opens. Small hard things slide around on wood. And then―
“Found it,” whispers Jodi. “I think. Not sure what else this could be.”
“Nice,” says Tacoma, because she feels like she should reply even if Jodi can't hear her. “Now let's go.”
Good thing she can't be heard, honestly. That came out much more desperate than she would have liked; her house is a bad place to be right now. She might not have Jodi's empathy, but she can tell a bad situation when she finds one, and the silence is making her skin crawl.
“Did you find it?” asks Charlie, as Jodi closes the door.
“Oh!” Tacoma's view jumps wildly, dim shapes sliding across it as the detritus of Jodi's bag slithers over the rock. “Sorry, you startled me. I wasn't expecting you to be waiting here.”
“Um.” Charlie laughs nervously. “I … yeah. I figured that, um. You know.”
What is up with this girl? Tacoma has never met anyone this jumpy before. The thought strikes her that maybe it's because of Jodi, and she feels her knuckles sting again as she clenches her fist. Jodi doesn't need this. Not again, not after Con. Can't the kid at least be polite?
“I'm not sure that I do,” says Jodi. “Sorry.”
“Oh. Uh, never mind. Did you find it?”
“No, unfortunately.” Jodi sighs. It's a pretty good fake sigh, all things considered. “I'm gonna have to try to calm her down the old-fashioned way. But thank you for letting me look. I know this came at the worst time.”
“Oh, it's okay!” says Charlie, far too eagerly. “I mean, I – since it's you―”
“Since it's me?”
“Yeah. Um. You know. You're – you were Tacoma's friend. And you're looking after Nikole. So.”
There is a long, long silence. Tacoma is at this point completely lost; there's something here that's not being said, something bothering both Charlie and Jodi, but with only their words to go by she hasn't got a snowflake's chance in hell of figuring out what it is.
“Charlie,” says Jodi carefully. “I don't think that's what you meant.”
“I-it is,” stammers Charlie. “I mean it, like of course―”
“You've been staring,” says Jodi. “Everyone has, but you've been really staring. In the library, and the other day when you were out with Ella.”
What? That's the first Tacoma's heard of any of this. She doesn't even know who Charlie is, let alone that she and Jodi apparently have some kind of history. How has she missed this? She was right there in the library with her, and she didn't even know there was anyone else around but Lorna.
Hard not to be hurt by this. It's unreasonable, yes, but Tacoma's world is small right now, and even tiny things like this seem huge when you stuff them into a space as cramped as that.
“Are you okay?” Jodi asks. One step forward, cane clicking on the floor. “'Cause Charlie, I'm psychic, and now that I've actually met you, I'm not sure you're doing this because you have a problem with me.”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” says Charlie, but she's an even worse liar than Jodi. “I'm fine. Really. It – it's just a surprise, honestly, 'cause I didn't even know that this was a thing―”
“But you wished it was, didn't you?” (Soft, pained noise from Charlie that makes Tacoma's insides shrivel up.) “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to assume. But if you're looking for some kind of answer, Charlie, I might be able to help you with that.”
The thing that Tacoma isn't getting is right here now, hanging over the conversation like the ominous shadow of a honchkrow. She feels like this is something she shouldn't be listening to, and at the same time as if she cannot possibly close the link on it.
“It's nothing,” says Charlie, her voice thick with the potential for tears. “I'm …”
“You can tell me,” says Jodi. “I know we don't really know each other, but if there's anyone in town you can talk to about this, you know it's me.”
Tiny sob. Jodi takes another step forward, and her coat rustles in a way that suggests an arm around shoulders.
“Hey,” she says. “I'm sorry. I know it really hurts.”
“I just want it so bad,” whimpers Charlie. “I just really …”
“I know. Believe me.”
“Ugh.” Deep sniff. The sound of someone pulling away. “Sorry. Stupid of me.”
“Not stupid at all,” says Jodi. “I promise you, I was at least this much of a mess.”
The penny finally drops. A girl called Charlie. Short for Charlotte, right? This is Charlotte Fay, Jessica's daughter, and that's why she's here; Jodi did mention that the Fays were helping her parents out. Tacoma's never heard anyone call her Charlie before, but then, she barely knows her; she's just a kid who lives two doors down.
Anyway. There has to be a reason why she prefers Charlie to Charlotte. And judging by what the two of them have just said, it might well be the same reason why Jodi prefers Jodi to Alex.
Tacoma is stunned. Somehow it never occurred to her that there might be more than one person like Jodi, even though she knew there must be. Even if she'd thought about it, she would have guessed that Jodi had to be the only one in Mahogany.
But then – Jodi didn't know till recently, right? And Charlie sure as hell wouldn't have found out that this was an option for her any other way.
He, even. Tacoma should stop saying she. She wouldn't call Jodi he; she should extend Charlie the same courtesy.
“I'm sorry for being creepy,” says Charlie. “I heard about you, and it was like … you can do that? But I didn't want to ask because – well, because Mum and Dad have been talking about you, and, um – sorry, but, um …”
“It's fine,” says Jodi, although Tacoma gets the distinct impression that it is not. “I'm guessing they don't get it.”
“No.” Charlie sniffs again. “They don't.”
This feels like the kind of silence in which someone is trying to find the right words.
“Okay, Charlie,” says Jodi. “I don't want to rush you or anything, and I think that this probably isn't the best time or place to have this conversation. But I want to ask you one thing right now, and I'd like you to answer without thinking about what your parents are saying. Can you do that for me?”
“… okay.”
Charlie's voice is very small. Tacoma is in awe of Jodi's capacity to deal with this; she herself would have been completely lost the first time Charlie started showing any sign of distress at all.
“Do you really want to be a girl?”
Charlie swallows.
“No,” he says, so quietly Tacoma almost misses it. “No, I don't.”
“Then you're not one,” says Jodi. “Only you get to make that decision. You wanna be a boy, you can be.”
“I can?”
The disbelief in his voice is painful to hear. He really didn't think anyone would ever say anything like this to him, did he? So he's been skulking around these past couple of weeks, staring at the one person in town brave enough to do what he wishes he could and sinking deeper and deeper into the green slough of envy.
This is what it is, Tacoma realises. This was Jodi, once. Tacoma imagines her alone in a room in a strange city with no company but Lothian and these thoughts, this pain; she imagines what it would be like if there wasn't a cool older kid to swoop in and turn the hurt into an idea you could hold and act upon. If you had to figure it out for yourself. If, when you did, you had to take that terrifying leap alone.
She never asked. She thought about it, that one time, but Tacoma never once asked how long Jodi has known, or how strewn with thorns the road that led to her introducing herself by her new name that morning really was. And now, listening to Charlie, Tacoma realises that even a connoisseur of self-loathing like herself probably only has a partial view of what that must have been like.
Shameful, to have left it so long. But so what; she's always ashamed. Better to be glad, right? Better to be glad that Jodi is here for Charlie, that one person at least gets a shoulder to lean on as he figures this shit out.
She tries it on for size: gladness, bright and crisp as morning in early autumn. It doesn't fit very well, and a moment later she throws it off again, unable to bear it one more second.
At least she tried, huh.
With her lost in thought, the conversation slips away from her; when she comes back to it, Charlie is apologising again and Jodi is telling him that it's fine, really, she is more than happy to be here.
“You know you're stuck with me whether you want me or not, now,” she says. “And you have my number, right?”
“Yeah. Same as …”
“As Ella's. Just ask for me.” Brief pause. “I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can stay,” says Jodi. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I-I don't know.”
“Sorry, wrong question. Do you feel better?”
“Yeah.” Tacoma can hear the smile in his words, faint and surprised. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Good. Call me soon, okay? We should talk some more.”
“Yes. Yes, we― yeah. I'd, um, I'd really like that.”
Rustling.
“Hey,” says Jodi. “You did something real difficult. And I'm sorry, there's a lot of difficult things to come, but still, you should be proud. Okay?”
She sounds almost like Michelle for some reason, the Goldenrod gloss wearing away from her words and revealing the Mahogany beneath.
“Yeah,” says Charlie – hesitant, fearful, hardly daring to believe what he's hearing. “Okay.”
Tacoma finally cuts the connection.
“I'm not bloody crying,” she says, but of course even if there was anyone around to hear her they wouldn't be fooled for a moment.
It's been a hell of a morning. Con, Nick, Charlie – and then, when they get back, Ella and Nikki, too. Jodi takes one and Tacoma the other, and by the time they end up in the same room as each other again it's past two o'clock.
“Okay,” says Jodi, coming back into her room and holding the door for Lothian. “That was a lot of lying I just did, and I don't know if she believed all of it, but I guess it's okay. I can tell her the truth when we're done.” She shuts the door, slumps in her chair while Lothian climbs on the bed. “Oof. I'm sorry, I've had a bunch of distractions. Are you okay? I know you weren't really expecting to go back home today …”
It's the first time they've spoken since their conversation on Tacoma's doorstep; Jodi might have tried to talk to her on the way home, but Tacoma had the window closed. Needed a little time alone, after her awful, silent house and that whole awkward thing with Charlie.
“'M fine,” she replies, from her usual perch in Nikki's claws. “Are you?”
“I honestly don't know.” Jodi sets her elbow on the desk and rests her head on her hand. “I feel so … weird. I mean, there was Con, and I didn't even know he was – I knew he didn't like me, but I wasn't expecting that.” She closes her eyes. “Should've done, I guess. People feel like they can get away with things. With me, I mean.”
“Yeah?” asks Tacoma.
“Yeah.” Jodi smiles without opening her eyes. “It's sweet of you to get angry on my behalf, but you don't need to.”
“Someone has to. You let them get away with that?”
Now Jodi opens her eyes, but there's no trace of a smile at all on her lips.
“They'd do it with or without my permission,” she says. “And there are so many of them, Tacoma. I can't fight every single battle. I don't have the time or energy to back that many lost causes.”
Well, Tacoma's screwed up again, hasn't she. Great. True friendship, right there.
“Sorry,” she mutters. “I guess I wouldn't know.”
“It's okay.”
“No it― sorry. Never mind.” Perfect recovery, Tacoma. Bloody flawless. “Anyway, uh, so Con's a giant mound of dickcheese, but Charlie, huh?”
There: the smile is back like a sunbeam piercing clouds. Almost enough to make Tacoma jealous, honestly. Be nice if her name made Jodi smile like that.
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “That's why 'weird' and not 'awful', I guess. I mean … two of us, here in Mahogany? What are the odds?”
“Pretty low, probably.”
“You're telling me. I barely know anyone like me in Goldenrod.” Slow shake of her head. “Guess we really need to come out of this okay now, huh? I'm not gonna get eaten while Charlie needs me like that.”
What about me, Tacoma's jealousy wants to know, what if I need you – but she jams the words back down her throat. Not everything is for her. This thing that Charlie and Jodi share? That is not something that needs Tacoma's intervention. Or that of anyone who isn't … like them.
There's probably a word for that, for the opposite of Jodi. Tacoma has always been the one with the vocabulary, but she feels like Jodi probably has her beat in this particular area.
“Sure,” she says. “Kinda figured it's not the sort of thing you wanna do alone.”
“No,” says Jodi. “It's not.”
“Mm.” Tacoma shifts uneasily on her thread. “About that. Did you, um, wanna talk about it?”
“Not today.” Jodi seems unsurprised by the question, which Tacoma supposes is actually pretty reasonable for a psychic. “That's a conversation I'm gonna have to prepare for, and I'm really not up to that now.”
“That's cool too,” Tacoma hastens to assure her. “Really. I just – thought I'd ask.”
“Thank you.” Jodi smiles. “You're sweet.”
“Sometimes. So, uh, you gonna show me that machine Nick made or what?”
“Oh. Right.” Jodi laughs. “You know, I almost forgot about that. Actually no, I honestly just completely lost track of why we even went to your house in the first place. Sorry. Lothi? Can you get my coat?”
He squeaks and drags it over to her, where she goes through the pockets and comes up with an old cigarette tin, cut apart and soldered inelegantly back together around a tangle of wires and diodes. Two scraps of plastic glued to the side, one red, one blue. Just like Nick said.
“Doesn't look like much,” says Tacoma. “That little thing can send that monster home?”
“I really hope so. I didn't get a chance to ask Nick if he'd tested it.”
“He seemed to think it would work.”
“Yeah. Hopefully that means it'll put an end to this.”
She's talking like they already know what's going to happen tonight. And sure, they do, but Tacoma was hoping for – well, for she doesn't know what, really. Something. Some idea, some line of enquiry, that would mean that her very mortal friend doesn't have to go back to the chapter house.
There's nothing, of course. But she figures she might as well argue about it anyway.
“So we're going,” she says. “Are you sure?”
Jodi gives her a look.
“Aren't you?”
For all her long words, Tacoma has no answer for that. Aren't you? Meaning – you saw what's down there, you know what they do with it, and you still doubt? You still think that we can walk away with our hands clean? That if we see evil in the world we are not obliged to make a stand?
Yes, Tacoma doubts. No, she doesn't think that they can walk away without guilt. She just wants to do it anyway, and if that means blood on their hands then so be it, they will hold their bloody hands and talk about things more important than the loss of other people's loved ones. And eventually they'll get over it.
But Jodi doesn't think that way. Nor does Nick. He gave them his machine on the condition that they use it. And as much as Tacoma doesn't want that responsibility, it looks like she's going to have to shoulder it.
Fuck it. Lying hasn't been doing her any favours; let's try honesty for once.
“I don't know if I ever could be,” she says. “Not sure if I'm that … kind of person. But, uh. I think you are. So I'm with you, I guess. And if anyone tries to kill you, I guess I'll beat the shit out of them with their shadow.”
Jodi stares. For so long, in fact, that Tacoma starts to regret saying anything. And then she smiles (sunbeams again), and glances up at Nikki.
“Can I?” she asks, reaching out, and then when Nikki blinks her assent lays her hand on the thin tendril of fog that binds Tacoma to the rock. “Thanks,” she says, returning her gaze to Tacoma. “As for you … that was really sweet. Right up till the part where it got violent, but you know, it's all part of your charm.”
Tacoma tries to smile, because this is a joke and you are supposed to smile at these, but even with Jodi's hand on her she can't manage it.
“Just don't die tonight,” she says. “Think you can swing that?”
Jodi considers this for a moment, and then nods. Something about how deliberate this movement is makes it seem much more comforting.
“I will do everything I can,” she replies, simply. “I hope that's good enough.”
And it isn't, really, but what are you gonna do, so Tacoma nods back.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”
TACOMA
Looking back on it now, the escape has an unreal quality to it, like a 3AM nightmare considered over a lunchtime beer on Saturday afternoon. Tacoma isn't even sure how they got out, honestly. She remembers Nikki running, Lothian galloping strenuously at her side, unable to spread his wings; she remembers Jodi sealing the secret door, stumbling back out into the bitter Mahogany night. She remembers the slow, silent walk back to her house, scarcely able to breathe for fear they'd hear the roar again and look up to see the shadow of those noisome tongues against the stars, ready to snatch them up and draw them into that awful mouth.
She remembers the mouth most of all. Remembers seeing the outline of the beast's spine and ribs through the sickly blue flesh of its palate. No organs in there, no sense, no anything that matched what Tacoma knows of biology. Just a hunger that could swallow Mahogany whole.
If those jaws had closed on Tacoma, she has no doubt that she'd be dead all over again, for real this time. Not even a ghost is coming back from that. If they'd closed on Jodi …
She tries not to think about this, but of course it's all she can think about.
She remembers so much, so vividly. But back in Jodi's room, with no evidence of any of it but Jodi's missing torch (in the pit now, lost for ever) and the dust all over her clothes, it feels like none of it could have really happened at all. There's no such thing as nightmarish mouth-chested monsters, right? And there definitely isn't one trapped in a razored nest of shattered spacetime buried in the remains of a fifteen-hundred-year-old hill fort accessed through a secret door in the back room of her local fucking grocery store.
Right?
Jodi closes her bedroom door and leans against it, breathing hard. She looks at Tacoma.
Tacoma looks back.
“That happened,” she says.
“Are you sure?” asks Tacoma.
“No.” Jodi pulls off her gloves with trembling hands, though she fumbles and drops them before she can put them on the desk. “Or maybe … I mean it had to be real, right? I felt it. All that hunger.” She touches her wrist, like the echo of the pain is still there. “My empathy doesn't work in dreams.”
“Right.” Pause. Should she …? Probably. “Hey, sit down,” says Tacoma. “You look beat.”
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “You're right.”
She shrugs off her coat and climbs stiffly onto her bed, Lothian going with her to help her along. He settles himself curled around her, his tail and head both draped over her lap, and she busies her hands brushing the dirt from his mane.
Nikki's probably dusty too, but unfortunately Tacoma's going to have to leave her to deal with that one herself. She'd like to soothe her – she can hear her pulse racing through the wall of her chest, right behind her head – but for the moment just staying here and not thinking about how Jodi could have been eaten is taking everything she's got.
“Well,” says Jodi, chewing her lip. “I think … I think we know where the bodies go.”
Tacoma nods; she's figured it out too. People going missing. A monster from another world. Jodi thought they were starving that thing, but now they've seen it Tacoma figures maybe that's just how it feels all the time; maybe it can't ever fill the emptiness in its impossible chest. And so many people disappear in these woods, and so few bodies are found.
“But then why did they put your body in the river?” asks Jodi. “I don't know what that thing's meant to eat, but I'm betting it'll take anything. They could've got rid of all the evidence right away.”
Tacoma shakes her head.
“Would've been a waste,” she says. “They'd just figured out Nick was onto them, right? Knew he was trying to do his thing with the spiritomb rock. And they know he and Con don't get on, right? You feed Con some evidence that the guy he hates most might've murdered his niece …”
“Oh my God.” Jodi's jaw actually drops slightly. Tacoma has never seen that happen before – wasn't even sure it actually did, outside of books and TV. “They deliberately set him up?”
“Why not?”
“No reason, I guess.” Jodi sighs. “I know people are awful, I shouldn't be surprised, I just … these are people we know, Tacoma. People like – God, Lothian saw Harry coming out of there, didn't he?” Lothian's ears twitch. “Nice people,” she says, sadly. “People I thought – people I thought better of.”
Tacoma isn't sure what to say; she hadn't even thought about that. Christ. Imagine that: Harry, smiling the way he does when he welcomes her off the train, standing around by that pit and talking to his friends about how it would be a criminal waste of a good corpse to throw Tacoma to the beast. Kill two birds with one stone, he'd say. Stop the rock reaching Nick – and stop Nick for good.
“Jesus,” she says, and something in her voice must sound bad, because Nikki clutches her a little tighter when she hears it. “You're right.”
“And that thing,” murmurs Jodi, hardly listening. “I don't even know … I mean, I know there are weird pokémon out there, but―”
“That wasn't a pokémon,” says Tacoma flatly. “The way that pit was fractured? With that thing stuck in it? I don't think that thing's from our dimension.” She shudders, and can't even bring herself to feel ashamed about it. “You saw, right? How … empty it was?”
“I saw,” says Jodi. “I saw.”
Silence. The wind picks up outside, begins to moan and whine around the lampposts in the street.
“I don't know what to do,” says Jodi, sounding close to tears. “Tacoma, I just … I don't know what to do any more.”
Lothian whines and curls tighter around her. Tacoma just stares. This is Jodi, right? This is the girl who's carried her through all of this, who's never fazed by anything, who has psychic equanimity and the kind of courage Tacoma can only dream of. Sure, Tacoma has sensed her distress, through that psychic link – but Jodi's always had an answer, even if all she can say is let's watch TV for a bit, we'll think of something later.
She hates herself for thinking this. Jodi is human, isn't she? Human, and only a handful of days older than Tacoma. She can't be any more at home with all this.
But if Jodi wasn't so nice she'd say that this was an unhelpful kind of thought, right, so Tacoma tries to swallow it and focus on something more useful.
“Hey,” she says. “Give me to Jodi, Nikki. Now,” she adds, when Nikki hesitates, and listens to her sniff in irritation as she deposits Tacoma in Jodi's arms. “Jodi,” she says, growing bigger, trying somehow to extrude some sort of misty arm to put around her. “It's gonna be okay.”
“Is it?” Jodi shifts Tacoma into one hand so she can wipe her eyes. “The only way I can see this ending is everything stays the same. I don't think even my parents would believe me if I told them what I saw, and sure as hell Con won't. He thinks I'm insane anyway.”
Her bitterness filters through the link, sharper and more acerbic than anything Tacoma has ever seen outside of a mirror.
“Who cares what Con thinks,” she starts to say, but Jodi doesn't let her finish.
“Me,” she says. “Because I'm an empath, Tacoma, and I don't get a choice about it. And because I'm pretty sure we can't take on the chapter house ourselves. Unless you have a plan?”
She says it in an angry sort of way that makes it clear she does not expect Tacoma to say yes. And sure enough, Tacoma doesn't – but she has something else to say instead.
“No, I don't,” she tells her, looking up into her eyes. “But Nick did. And if he was looking for a way into the chapter house, he was ready to put it into action.”
Jodi's eyes widen.
“What?”
“We have to speak to him,” says Tacoma. “And we will, okay? Say you want to visit. Hell, they'll probably ask you to, since you're psychic and all. I'll think of some excuse. And then” (another of those fake inward breaths) “then you'll get the truth out of him. I know you will. You almost got it the other day, right?”
“Are you sure?” asks Jodi, with a kind of nervous self-doubt that reminds Tacoma of the way she took the news that she was beautiful.
“Of course you will,” says Tacoma. “I'll be there too, yeah? We'll figure something out.” She stretches her thread as far as it will go, trying to bring herself level with Jodi's eyeline. Can't quite reach, but whatever. Close enough. “We're not beaten,” she says, and although even she can't say whether she believes this or not it sounds so good in her mouth, like something a real person would say. “You're not beaten,” she adds. “Not yet.”
A weak, embarrassed kind of smile.
“You have a lot of faith in me,” says Jodi, wiping her eyes again. “Sweet of you.”
“Yeah, well, you're pretty sweet yourself,” retorts Tacoma, mock-mean to hide the fact that she's gone a deeper purple. “You, uh … deserve sweet things.”
Now Jodi's blushing too. Part of Tacoma wants to just tear into the both of them for being such sentimental dorks, but a larger part is too awestruck and afraid of the fact that she did a good thing for once to dare ruin the moment.
“Thank you,” she says, trying to figure out how to hug Tacoma without dropping her on Lothian's head and having to give up halfway. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't be giving up like that.”
Tacoma snorts.
“You literally can't give up worse than I've done,” she says, hoping it sounds like a joke and not just bitterness. “Look, it's … God, it's like quarter past two. Let's just go to bed, okay?
“That's probably the best idea either of us have come up with all night,” says Jodi. “Right. Nikki is glaring like she wants you back, so―”
“Let her glare a minute,” says Tacoma, giving up on the idea of a hug and just leaning into Jodi's shoulder instead. “She's gotta learn to share me sometime.”
So they let her glare, and Lothian quietly pulls back and leaves them to it.
It's been a fuck of a bad night, all things considered, and tomorrow doesn't look like it's going to be much better, but Tacoma can't deny that this helps.
Knock knock.
“Jodi?”
Ella's voice. Sounds wrong, somehow.
Tacoma vanishes back into the rock and opens her window again, a sick dread in her heart. As usual, she was up first, watching fresh snow build up on Jodi's windowsill; it's past eleven now, but Jodi and the pokémon are still asleep. All that creeping around in the dark had to catch up with them eventually, Tacoma supposes.
Listening to Ella now, she has a horrible feeling that it might be about to catch up with them in another way, too.
“Jodi, uh … sorry, but it's kinda important.”
The blanket nest shuffles and stirs.
“Ella?”
“Hi. Yeah. Um … the cops are here?”
Jodi sits up suddenly, wide awake. Her eyes do not leave Tacoma's rock.
“What?” she asks.
“The cops are here. They said it was about Tacoma.”
Okay. Okay, maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe they just need a psychic to have a chat with Nick.
Maybe.
Tacoma begins to pick her lips.
“O-kay,” says Jodi, brows knitting together. “Um … tell them I'll be right down.”
“Okay.” Tacoma hears no footsteps: Ella's still there. “Everything's okay, isn't it?”
“Yes, Ella,” says Jodi. “Everything's fine, I promise.”
“Right. Right, cool, I'll – I'll go tell them.”
“Thank you.”
Tacoma waits to hear Ella go down the stairs, then sticks her head out.
“I'm coming,” she says.
“Wasn't gonna try and stop you,” replies Jodi. “Talk to Nikki, okay? I don't think we can take her.”
They say these things easily, naturally, as if making plans to meet up for coffee later. As if it were all just a matter of logistics.
If there were anything left in Tacoma's stomach, she thinks she'd probably be sick.
Ten minutes later, they're both on their way downstairs, Nikki left unwillingly in Jodi's room and Lothian stalking on ahead. Tacoma can't actually see – she's back in Jodi's bag again – but she keeps the link open anyway, watching lipstick and tissues tumble over her vision while she strains her ears to hear who it is that's turned up.
“Hello, Jodi.” Byrne Winter. Tacoma doesn't have much of an opinion about her; she's the first female cop in Mahogany and possibly all of north Johto, which is definitely some kind of milestone, but she also has a dragonair – and that has always struck Tacoma as suspicious. There's something annoyingly superior about people from the Blackthorn dragon clan. Like they think pure tribal blood and a big scaly partner make them better than you.
“Hi, Sergeant Winter,” says Jodi. “Sergeant Brennan. What's this about?”
Simeon too, then. Him, Tacoma actively dislikes, if only because he ratted her out to her parents once when he caught her drinking stolen beer in one of the abandoned trailers in the Cedarshade development when she was fifteen.
“Tacoma,” says Byrne. “Would you mind coming with us to the station? There are a couple things we need to discuss, in light of recent events.”
“You mean Nick?”
“We really can't talk about it here,” says Simeon. “I'll fill you in at the station.”
“Okay,” says Jodi. “Will this take long?”
“No. Shouldn't do.”
“Fine. You hang on a sec, Ella, I'll be back in a minute.”
“Okay,” says Ella, nervously. “Sure.”
The ride to the station is horribly, unnervingly quiet. The only one with any desire to break the silence is Lothian, who clicks occasionally and gets a telepathic answer from Jodi that Tacoma senses without properly hearing. Without being able to see any landmarks, she has no idea how long it takes; all she can be sure of is that she has far too much time to think.
Did that torch really fall in the pit? Or did someone see it? And if they did, if they knew – would the kind of person who could frame Nick for Tacoma's murder be ready to throw Jodi to the cops as well?
The entrance is in the store. Sarah knew what the chapter house was. Oh hi Jackie, Tacoma imagines her saying, phone against her ear and Jodi's torch in her hand. No, I'm afraid I'm calling on business. I think I might have had a break-in …
Tacoma runs out of skin tabs to pull off her lips, and starts probing the wounds on her hand instead.
After what seems like hours, during which time Tacoma successfully manages to make all of her knuckles start bleeding again, she finally hears the engine turn off and the doors open. Doors, the stamping off of snow from boots, words with Jackie – and then, just like Tacoma was afraid of, Con.
“Hello,” he says, and from the reaction in Jodi's mind Tacoma knows his omission of her name is one hundred per cent deliberate. “I'll take it from here, Byrne.”
“Chief Wicke,” says Jodi. “What's this all about?”
“I'll explain. Can you leave Lothian out here?”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it,” he says, cool as the snow outside. “Thank you.”
A nervous little pause, then a sigh.
“Lothi? I need you to … yeah, I know. I know! But you have to, okay?”
“Caradoc and I will look after him,” says Byrne, to the distinctive sound of a ball opening. “Won't we?”
Whatever response Caradoc has, it's silent. Figures. Dragonair aren't really known for their voices.
“Okay,” says Jodi, and now there is just the faintest hint of a tremor in her voice. “Lothi? Please.”
He hisses furiously, but apparently he agrees. Tacoma hears boots on tiled floors, a door closing, chairs being pulled up.
“Thank you for coming out this morning,” says Con. “I appreciate it.”
“Sure,” says Jodi. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about now?”
The silence stretches out, like a knife being pulled slowly across a throat. Tacoma jams her fingernail deep into the broken skin over her knuckle, feels the slick hardness of her bones.
Someone puts something on the table. Jodi inhales sharply.
“Do you recognise this?” asks Con.
The torch. Tacoma knew it. They left the torch and Sarah found it and―
“If I'm not much mistaken, it belonged to your grandfather,” he continues, and Tacoma pauses in her exploration of her wounds, startled. How on earth would Con know that? “And then to your mother, before she quit. Now, I think, it belongs to you.”
Wait. That's not the torch.
Jodi's lighter? Tacoma didn't even know she had it on her last night. Did it fall from her pocket when Nikki grabbed her to run away?
“Do you know where this was found?”
She doesn't answer. Tacoma can't tell if she's afraid or just plain stubborn.
“I'm waiting,” says Con. He still hasn't said Jodi's name even once. He knows, right? He knows exactly how much of his intent she can sense, and he's levering it against her.
Christ. What Tacoma wouldn't give to leap out of the stone now, cut the lights and scare him shitless with the blazing of her eyes in the dark.
“I don't know,” says Jodi, at last. Her voice sounds strong, still. Somehow. “Are you going to tell me, or are we going to sit here all day and stare at each other?”
Con pauses for a moment before he answers, just long enough to indicate that he is not at all impressed.
“In the back room of the store,” he says. “Sarah called us early this morning.”
Fucking called it! Tacoma grimaces, senses the purple flames all around her flaring up with her anger. Goddamn Sarah and the goddamn chapter house. They knew Con hated Nick, and they know he doesn't like Jodi, either. And most of all, they know that he is a small-town cop right down to the core of his tedious little soul, and given a piece of evidence will pursue it doggedly to the obvious conclusion.
“Right,” says Jodi. “What was it doing there?”
Even she's struggling to sound unafraid now. Not hard to see why. This is the kind of trouble that sticks, in Mahogany. Everyone knows everyone. And that means everyone feels entitled to judge.
Besides. Michelle and León would be disappointed, and considering the kind of relationship Jodi has with them, Tacoma feels like that would hurt her most of all.
“Well, I was hoping that you could tell me,” says Con mildly. “I have to say, I was pretty surprised. You're not the type to do something like this.”
Again, no answer. Now Jodi's fear is strong enough that Tacoma can sense it through the link, sour and dry as sloes.
Con sighs.
“Okay,” he says. “Can I take a guess? You're not a thief. You've been looking into Tacoma's death, still. Even after you were warned against it. And for some reason, you thought that Sarah was connected, so you started poking around in the store.”
Tacoma hears skin rubbing against something hard: Jodi, rolling the handle of her cane between her fingers. She's probably chewing her lip too, right. Can't blame her. Con is closer to the truth than she'd like.
“How d'you know I was warned?” asks Jodi warily.
“Because I asked Gabriella to talk to you,” says Con. “It's my job to notice things.”
Okay. Gabriella didn't actually do that though, did she? So not so close to the truth after all.
Small comfort, honestly. Tacoma does not like where this is going at all.
“So,” he says. “I'm going to take that question as confirmation that I was right. I'm glad we're not denying things here.” The rubbing sound gets faster, punctuated with clicks as Jodi's cane taps against the edge of the table. “You are going to stop this,” Con says, quietly and clearly. “You are going to stop this now, and then I won't tell Sarah who this belongs to. Or your parents.” Pause. “Do we have a deal?”
A clatter: Jodi's hand has slipped and her cane has fallen to the floor.
“Let me get that for you,” says Con, over the scraping of the chairs, and then Tacoma hears a sharp intake of breath and feels Jodi's panic flood the connection, so hard and fast it's all she can do not to spring out of the rock to her defence. Two agonising seconds of silence pass – and then there's Jodi's voice, small and fearful:
“Please give me back my cane.”
Tacoma never got it, before now. Never really understood what it was that Jodi's cane meant. But trapped in this rock, dependent on her partner or her friend to take her places, it all starts to make sense.
She isn't even sure if Jodi can crawl, if maybe she still isn't meant to put weight on her left knee. By holding her cane on the other side of the table, Con might as well have cut her hamstrings.
He leaves her hanging for a long moment. Tacoma imagines him looking at her, at the cane: oh, this old thing? and a smile like a shark's, vapid, dangerous. She clenches her bleeding fist hard, the last of the scabs cracking open again, and then just as she thinks she can't hold herself back any longer she hears him speak:
“Sure,” he says. “And we'll both forget about this. Yes?”
The rustling of some quick, desperate movement.
“Yes,” says Jodi fervently. “Yes. Okay. I'll just … I'll go home.”
“That's a good idea,” says Con seriously. “Don't let me catch you here again. I'm not going to cover for you twice.”
He says it like he's doing her a favour. Like he actually believes this, like he did any of this by accident.
Strange feeling, wanting to hurt someone else as much as she wants to hurt herself, but Tacoma supposes there's a first time for everything.
“Right,” says Jodi. “I'm sorry. I was stupid.”
“No,” says Tacoma fiercely, knowing she shouldn't distract her but too angry to hold her tongue. “Don't apologise to him!”
She doesn't get an answer, which strikes her as fair enough. If Jodi even hears her, she definitely has more important things on her mind right now.
“I get it,” Con tells Jodi. “You're upset about your friend. We all make mistakes.” He waits for her to make some kind response to his attempt at amicability, but none is forthcoming. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, I don't see any reason to keep you here. You can go now.”
Jodi says nothing. Tacoma listens to her breathing as they make their way back down the corridor to the lobby, and then to Lothian's anxious scratching and squeaking as he checks to see if his partner's okay. He doesn't sound convinced to Tacoma, but then she figures she probably doesn't know enough to tell for sure.
“Someone missed you,” says Byrne. Jodi mumbles a response that Tacoma doesn't catch. “Sure,” says Byrne. “Seems that way.”
“All right.” Con's voice again, making Tacoma's gut twist with hate. “Byrne can drop you back―”
“Actually, there's one thing I want to do before I go,” says Jodi. She sounds better now, with her cane in her hand and her partner at her side. Probably Lothian could take Con and Moira, if it came to it. Maybe not Caradoc, but still. Hard not to feel a little better with a dragon in your corner. “I'd like to visit Nick.”
“What?” Byrne sounds like she wasn't expecting that. “Jodi, I don't think that that's―”
“Hang on a moment,” Con interrupts. “Why?”
This is Tacoma's cue, of course. Jodi's sweet, but you can't trust her to have a good story prepared.
“Because you want to see him for yourself,” she says, raising her voice a little. “Because you want to know if it's true.”
“Because I want to see for myself,” repeats Jodi. “Because I want to know if it's … you know.”
“Jodi,” says Byrne. “I really don't―”
“No, let her.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” says Con. “Let her see his guilt.”
Tacoma snorts.
“Jesus Christ,” she mutters. “What circle of hell is it that cops go to when they die, again?”
“This will put an end to it,” says Con. “You hear me, kid?”
“Yes,” says Jodi. “I hear you, Chief Wicke.”
There's that old steel in her voice again. Feels good to hear it, after that awful interview.
“Okay,” says Byrne. “Right this way, Jodi.”
Footsteps, slithering, scratching. Tacoma worries her busted knuckles and broods.
“Are you okay?” she asks, when the silence becomes unbearable. “Sorry for interrupting.”
Jodi's answer comes a bit too fast for comfort.
It's okay. I'm okay. He just …
“I know. I heard.”
I feel wrong, says Jodi, sounding like she did after her last talk with Con, way back at the start of all this, but before Tacoma can come up with any kind of answer Byrne tells her that she's going to have to leave Lothian out here and Jodi breaks off contact to argue with him again. Byrne then has to check her bag, and of course she asks about the rock, but fortunately it seems she doesn't recognise what it is and accepts Jodi's lie about focusing stones; Tacoma hears it all without really listening to it, suddenly overcome with nerves. Nick's right there. Her uncle is right there on the other side of a door, and why the hell did she even decide to come, Jodi doesn't need Tacoma's fear dragging her down―
Do you want to talk to him? asks Jodi.
“Oh,” says Tacoma. “Um. No. No, it's … it's fine.” She can't show him what she is. Even if he knows about spiritomb, she just can't do that to him. “I mean, I can, I guess, if – if you need me to … but I don't know if they have a security camera down here? So, uh, maybe it's not such a―”
It's okay, says Jodi, infuriatingly nice. It's okay. I won't make you do anything you're not ready for.
Tacoma Spearing, niece of the year. She picks anxiously at her knuckles, and waits with bated breath as Jodi makes her way down the passage.
“Ten minutes,” says Byrne, opening a heavy metal door. “I hope you find what you need, Jodi.”
“Thanks,” says Jodi. “Okay.”
The door closes. Only one set of footsteps now, and the click of a cane.
“Hi,” says Jodi, after a while, and Tacoma knows they are no longer alone. “I came to visit.”
For the longest time there's no answer at all, and then a sigh so painfully familiar it makes Tacoma's heart feel like it might split in two.
“Well,” says Nick. “Not sure how you talked your way in here, Jodi, but here you are, I guess.”
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “Guess I am.”
This is a different kind of silence to the one in the interview room. This is the silence of a grown man trying to find the courage to admit to a teenage girl that he's fucked up.
Assuming Nick thinks of Jodi as a girl, that is. Tacoma really hopes he of all people does, but after Con she can't help but be suspicious.
“I don't know how long they're gonna let me have, so I'll cut to the chase,” she says. “I had Lothian tail you after I left on Saturday.”
“What? You …” Nick breaks off, laughs hollowly to himself. “Christ. I knew you were smart. Don't know why I thought I'd talked you round.”
“Call it insurance,” says Jodi, and despite herself Tacoma has to smile. For once, Jodi's managed a halfway snappy retort. “I saw where the entrance is, Nick. And I … I went in there last night.”
Pause. Tacoma wonders what she'd say, if she was Nick and some kid told her that she'd broken into the chapter house. She isn't sure she'd have any words. She definitely isn't surprised that Nick doesn't seem to.
“You saw it,” he says.
It's not a question.
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “We did. Me and Lothi and Nikki. And now, Nick … now I don't know what to do.”
Tacoma can hear all of it in her voice: the pain of the beast, the two-in-the-morning despair, the second-hand nausea from Con, the panic of having her cane taken. And yet she's here, right? Still here, still asking all the right questions. Tacoma would have gone home to get drunk and hurt herself long ago.
“Okay,” says Nick. Can he hear it too? Or is it just that he knows what it is to see that creature, that nobody can come away from it unchanged? “I don't think I can in good conscience keep hiding this stuff from you. So.”
He doesn't finish the thought. Maybe there's a gesture there that Tacoma missed, or maybe that's just all there is. So what? So nothing. So.
“What is it?” asks Jodi.
Nick sighs.
“A visitor,” he says. “I don't know, exactly. Some dimensions aren't well understood. Most of them, even. Don't know what kind of things might live there. But the general term for things like that – things that have come here from another world by accident – is a faller.”
He sounds so professional. For the first time, Tacoma can imagine her uncle at the head of a lecture hall, notes in one hand and a stick of chalk in the other. Students at Yellowbrick can attend any lectures they want, provided they also attend those compulsory for their subject, but she's never gone to any of Nick's. It would have been weird. Like it is now.
“A faller,” repeats Jodi, testing out the word. “So it wasn't them? They didn't … I don't know, summon it?”
“Don't think so. More a case of right place, right time. Wormhole – that's a portal – opens up, poor bastard falls in and gets stuck in the doorway, so to speak. Then some poorer bastard finds it, and well.” Nick sighs again. “Doubt you of all people need telling that people do terrible things when they're afraid.”
In the old days – way before Tacoma's time, back in the days of the feudal lords – they used to build temples when they found places that seemed holy, touched in some way by Ho-oh or Lugia. Where fire and flood are close to the surface of things, as Alistair once put it in one of his more interesting sermons. A pure spring. A cave of glow-worms. A forest grove. These things were built upon to keep them separate and divine.
What would the people who did things like that have done if they had found the monster? If they had found something connected to neither Ho-oh nor Lugia, some other power so vast and alien they could never hope to understand or conquer it?
Look at the monster. See the mouth, see that its whole body is shaped by hunger.
How do you worship a thing like that?
Tacoma thinks of a drifter with a movie star name snatched from her trailer, falling past the crystal spines towards that gaping chest. She thinks of the kid who ran away back when she and Jodi were in school. She thinks of hikers, of wanderers, of loners without anyone to mourn their passing.
“How long?” asks Jodi, her thoughts evidently on the same track.
“God knows,” says Nick. “Longer than the town. Maybe it's why people settled here in the first place. Not like this place has much else to recommend it.”
The sound of his voice makes Tacoma shift uneasily on her sarcophagus. Somehow this kind of sourness is much worse coming from someone other than her. Worse still from someone like Nick.
“Sorry,” he says, after a brief and awkward silence. “I'm, uh. Not at my best right now.”
“It's okay,” says Jodi. “I don't think either of us is really doing great.”
“Hah. Yeah. Guess not.” Nick takes a deep, steadying breath. “Jodi, can I ask you something?”
“Okay,” she says, wary. “What is it?”
“Why did you come here?”
Jodi hesitates. Tacoma wants to help, wants to come up with some kind of reason for her, but she can't seem to speak, all her breath trapped deep in her throat by some malignant force.
“I … know you had a plan,” says Jodi. “And I can't let this continue.”
“No,” says Nick. “You think I'm going to ask a kid to do this? I know I've been irresponsible, but―”
“You called me an adult on Saturday, Nick. Can't have it both ways. And besides,” she continues, before he can reply, “you started all this when you were my age, right? Back when Mae West died and you broke in yourself.”
“How did you …?”
“Like you said,” says Jodi shortly. “Smart. Do you want help or not?”
Tacoma stares into the dark so hard her eyes sting. She wants Nick to relent, because this is what Jodi wants; she wants Nick to refuse, because if she has to send Jodi back down into the chapter house she is going to smash her other hand too. She wants Nick to relent, because saving Mahogany is the right thing to do. She wants him to refuse, because this whole thing is terrible and she can't stand to be stuck in it a moment longer. She wants him to relent. She wants him to refuse. She wants―
“Yeah, okay,” says Nick. He sounds tired, and ashamed. As he should be, honestly. As Tacoma is. “I want you to know I'd never ask if there was any other―”
“Well, there isn't,” says Jodi. “Tell me, Nick. How do we end this?”
“Close the wormhole,” he replies. “That's what I've been doing all this time. Whole reason I went into dimensional studies was to find a way to get rid of that thing.”
There seems to be something hard gripping the inside of Tacoma's chest. Nick's a hero after all. Ten years – more than ten, even – of working secretly against the chapter house and its murderous inhabitants. Collecting materials and knowledge, biding his time until he was ready to drive his lance directly into his opponent's heart.
Tacoma knows there's a gap between the way kids see adults and the way adults really are. She knows there's no such thing as heroes, only people who are less defeated than the rest.
Still. Her uncle has dedicated his life to defeating this evil. That's something to be proud of, at least.
“Took a long time,” he's explaining, slipping deeper into lecturer mode. “Lot of trial and error, too. Most of my colleagues are interested in how we might open wormholes, not close them. For a while I investigated ghost-types – dusknoir can move on the shadow plane, spiritomb contain a small dimension inside them. That, uh … that's why my contact sent me that rock. It's inert, see – someone found a way to seal it off, stop the ghosts from coming out. The Ghost Studies people thought it was something to do with taking the lead spirit out, somehow, but―”
He stops. Just like that. Tacoma knows this kind of stop; it's the kind you make when you suddenly realise that your cleverness has run away with you, and you have for the last five minutes been so focused on your idea that you have forgotten to feel the emotions you were meant to.
Faced with that, she almost doesn't even notice that she's finally learned why the rock swallowed her up in the first place.
“Doesn't matter,” he says, his disgust oozing through his words like mud trickling into shoes. “I thought I could learn something from it and I was wrong. So I moved onto the next thing, and I forgot I'd asked my contact in Ghost Studies if I could study the rock. I wasn't expecting him to send it to me, I really wasn't.”
It's her, isn't it? He hasn't mentioned her, but of course that's what it is. He wants to tell Jodi the truth about her dead friend, confess his sins in the hope it might buy him some kind of redemption.
God. Maybe fucked-up just runs in the family.
“I'm not gone,” she whispers, picking her knuckles. “I'm sorry …”
Something warm and bright begins to glow inside her, fighting the hardness gripping her chest. Jodi must have heard her. That's pretty bloody embarrassing, really, but not so much she's going to argue with her if she wants to use her psionics to help out.
“I'm sorry,” says Jodi. Tacoma thinks she's talking to her for a second, and is faintly surprised to hear Nick answer.
“Yeah, so am I, Jodi. So am I.” He speaks quickly, viciously, then stops. When he starts again, his voice is kinder and more measured. “Look, it's over now. What I was trying to get at was that I did find a way, in the end. When I went to Alola – I really did do that, by the way, just not when I said I did – I got the last of what I needed from the experts there. It's the world capital for extradimensional research.”
“I didn't know that.”
“Not a lot of people do. But there was one researcher there whose paper I'd read, and … well, the specifics don't matter. I came back, set up shop close enough to Mahogany to monitor the wormhole but not so close that the chapter house would find out and come for me, and built myself a machine for closing it.”
This is great news, it really is. It's just that Tacoma suspects that making use of it is going to involve breaking into the chapter house. And maybe, maybe, there's a happy ending here where nobody ends up dead and the cult falls apart without its horrific ravening totem – or maybe they have a guard on the door now, or they figure out it was Jodi who did it and send someone after her for revenge, and then Tacoma has to spend the rest of eternity with the fact that no, she really did destroy Jodi after all.
“You did?” asks Jodi, none of Tacoma's fear evident in her voice. “So where is it? Did the cops―?”
“No, I hid the machine before they arrived,” he says. “In the drawer of Tacoma's bedside table. Red button, blue button, drop it in the pit and get as far away as you can.”
“That simple, huh.” That's not relief in Jodi's voice. Tacoma couldn't tell you what it is, but it's not relief.
“That simple,” confirms Nick. “I didn't want to get it wrong.”
“No,” says Jodi. “I guess not. So … red button, blue button? And then it's all over?”
“Some of it. The bit about feeding people to a monster from another world, anyway.”
“And you? Will you be okay?”
Pause.
“That, uh … that depends. I've called my – my lawyer, and―”
Behind them, that heavy door clunks open again, and Nick falls silent.
“Time's up,” says Byrne. “Satisfied?”
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “I've seen enough.”
Looks like she's finally learning how to lie. She sounds exactly like an empath who's just tasted someone's guilt at killing his niece: shocked, exhausted, pained.
Or maybe it's too good to be an act. She must be feeling some of it for real, after everything that's just happened.
“All right,” says Byrne. “Back for you in a moment, Nick. Ecruteak forensics have just got back to us about that cabin of yours, and we have some more questions.”
“You know where to find me,” he says sourly.
“Come on, Jodi. I'll drop you home. Your sister will be worried.”
“Thanks, but I'll walk.” The metallic boom of the door closing. “I have a couple of errands to run in town, and I'd rather not walk back here again.” Momentary hesitation. “Can I use the phone and tell her?”
“Sure,” says Byrne. Her voice is friendly in a way that Tacoma doesn't trust at all. “I don't see why not.”
“Thank you.”
They keep walking. After a few seconds, when it seems unlikely that the conversation is going to start again, Tacoma dares to speak.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
No, says Jodi. Are you?
Tacoma snorts.
“What the hell do you think?”
Yeah, says Jodi. I honestly don't know what I expected you to say.
Ella is scared. Of course she is: she's thirteen, afraid that someone's going to murder her or her sister in the dark the way they did Tacoma, and she just saw Jodi get gently but firmly taken away by the cops in connection to a murder. But she also trusts Jodi, and she wants to be calmed down, so after a few minutes of soft tones and soothing lies she seems to accept that although everything seems terrible it is, in fact, okay.
Fine. Next job.
They don't discuss this, although they both know what it is they're planning on doing. Talking about it seems dangerous, somehow, like if the idea gets out there into the world it might run off and leave them on their own. Instead, Jodi tells Tacoma that she's in a little bit of trouble right now, and could Tacoma talk to her, please? Just keep talking? And Tacoma has no goddamn clue what to say, but she knows Jodi still has Con in her head, still has a man carving his hate into the back of her skull like he did his initials into that tree in Three Pines; and so Tacoma starts talking about her parasitology course for some reason, about Professor Leadbeater and his obsession with a particular kind of quasi-living rust that infects steel-types; and it sounds completely inane even to her, but she keeps talking, and Jodi keeps on trudging towards Long Avenue, emitting sporadic uh-huhs, and then at last Jodi sighs and says okay.
Thank you, she says. That would've been way harder on my own.
Tacoma shrugs.
“'S fine,” she says. “I'm your friend. You know.”
Yeah. I know. She sighs. We're here, though. And, um, I won't be able to hear or speak to you while we're in there, since I'll need to concentrate on not having the grief melt my brain. So if you need anything, any kind of preparations … now's the time.
Like what, Tacoma almost says, but she is determined not to be an asshole this time, so instead she shakes her head and forces herself to put her bleeding hand down at her side.
“Let's go,” she said. “Get this over with.”
Okay. Can you help me think of a reason to get up in your room? It has to be something urgent. 'Cause Nick just got arrested on suspicion of your murder and honestly this is the worst possible time to turn up here uninvited.
“Oh. Right.” Why didn't she think of that? “Uh … Nikki's acting up. She has this soft toy she likes – you know how kangaskhan like to hold things? It's this cuddly teddiursa my aunt who doesn't know what I like gave me when I was a kid – and you think it would help. You know it was probably in my luggage, but you have to check my room anyway, because things are so bad with her right now.”
Brilliant. Thanks. Brief pause. Are you ready?
She's already asked, but fine.
“Yeah.”
Okay.
Knock knock. A long pause. Tacoma steels herself for another familiar voice―
“Oh,” says someone she doesn't know at all. A girl, by the sound of it. “J-Jodi.”
“Hi, Charlie,” says Jodi. “I'm really sorry, I know this is a bad time, but―”
“Yeah. It kind of is. I―” Charlie (whoever that is) breaks off and starts again, a little quieter. “I'm really not meant to let anyone―”
“Please,” says Jodi. “Just hear me out. It's Nikki – she's really acting up, like I think she might break something, and I think if I can just get her that teddiursa doll she likes, I could probably calm her down.”
“I don't know – Mum was really clear that I shouldn't let …”
“I won't disturb anyone, I promise. I'll just come in, go check Tacoma's room, and then leave. Please, Charlie.”
Tacoma holds her breath …
“Okay. Okay, if it's just for a moment.”
… and lets it out again.
All right. They're in. Thank God. There wasn't really any sort of backup plan here.
“Thank you,” says Jodi, with that special earnestness that only she can manage. “C'mon, Lothi. Quietly now.”
The door closes, and three sets of footsteps make their way across the hall. Tacoma listens hard, hoping to hear some evidence of her family even as she dreads it, but there's nothing. No TV or radio in the background or anything.
Possibly the silence is actually worse than if there was something.
“Here,” says Charlie pointlessly, leading Jodi upstairs. “Her room is on the end there.”
“I know,” says Jodi. “Thank you.”
She doesn't hesitate. Tacoma hears the door open and knows she is right now in her room again, at last. Two weeks late and without her suitcase or her body, but she's here.
She feels less strongly about this than she thought she would. It just doesn't seem real, not while she's in the rock and unable to see anything but the inside of Jodi's bag.
“Okay,” murmurs Jodi. “Bedside table …”
A drawer opens. Small hard things slide around on wood. And then―
“Found it,” whispers Jodi. “I think. Not sure what else this could be.”
“Nice,” says Tacoma, because she feels like she should reply even if Jodi can't hear her. “Now let's go.”
Good thing she can't be heard, honestly. That came out much more desperate than she would have liked; her house is a bad place to be right now. She might not have Jodi's empathy, but she can tell a bad situation when she finds one, and the silence is making her skin crawl.
“Did you find it?” asks Charlie, as Jodi closes the door.
“Oh!” Tacoma's view jumps wildly, dim shapes sliding across it as the detritus of Jodi's bag slithers over the rock. “Sorry, you startled me. I wasn't expecting you to be waiting here.”
“Um.” Charlie laughs nervously. “I … yeah. I figured that, um. You know.”
What is up with this girl? Tacoma has never met anyone this jumpy before. The thought strikes her that maybe it's because of Jodi, and she feels her knuckles sting again as she clenches her fist. Jodi doesn't need this. Not again, not after Con. Can't the kid at least be polite?
“I'm not sure that I do,” says Jodi. “Sorry.”
“Oh. Uh, never mind. Did you find it?”
“No, unfortunately.” Jodi sighs. It's a pretty good fake sigh, all things considered. “I'm gonna have to try to calm her down the old-fashioned way. But thank you for letting me look. I know this came at the worst time.”
“Oh, it's okay!” says Charlie, far too eagerly. “I mean, I – since it's you―”
“Since it's me?”
“Yeah. Um. You know. You're – you were Tacoma's friend. And you're looking after Nikole. So.”
There is a long, long silence. Tacoma is at this point completely lost; there's something here that's not being said, something bothering both Charlie and Jodi, but with only their words to go by she hasn't got a snowflake's chance in hell of figuring out what it is.
“Charlie,” says Jodi carefully. “I don't think that's what you meant.”
“I-it is,” stammers Charlie. “I mean it, like of course―”
“You've been staring,” says Jodi. “Everyone has, but you've been really staring. In the library, and the other day when you were out with Ella.”
What? That's the first Tacoma's heard of any of this. She doesn't even know who Charlie is, let alone that she and Jodi apparently have some kind of history. How has she missed this? She was right there in the library with her, and she didn't even know there was anyone else around but Lorna.
Hard not to be hurt by this. It's unreasonable, yes, but Tacoma's world is small right now, and even tiny things like this seem huge when you stuff them into a space as cramped as that.
“Are you okay?” Jodi asks. One step forward, cane clicking on the floor. “'Cause Charlie, I'm psychic, and now that I've actually met you, I'm not sure you're doing this because you have a problem with me.”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” says Charlie, but she's an even worse liar than Jodi. “I'm fine. Really. It – it's just a surprise, honestly, 'cause I didn't even know that this was a thing―”
“But you wished it was, didn't you?” (Soft, pained noise from Charlie that makes Tacoma's insides shrivel up.) “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to assume. But if you're looking for some kind of answer, Charlie, I might be able to help you with that.”
The thing that Tacoma isn't getting is right here now, hanging over the conversation like the ominous shadow of a honchkrow. She feels like this is something she shouldn't be listening to, and at the same time as if she cannot possibly close the link on it.
“It's nothing,” says Charlie, her voice thick with the potential for tears. “I'm …”
“You can tell me,” says Jodi. “I know we don't really know each other, but if there's anyone in town you can talk to about this, you know it's me.”
Tiny sob. Jodi takes another step forward, and her coat rustles in a way that suggests an arm around shoulders.
“Hey,” she says. “I'm sorry. I know it really hurts.”
“I just want it so bad,” whimpers Charlie. “I just really …”
“I know. Believe me.”
“Ugh.” Deep sniff. The sound of someone pulling away. “Sorry. Stupid of me.”
“Not stupid at all,” says Jodi. “I promise you, I was at least this much of a mess.”
The penny finally drops. A girl called Charlie. Short for Charlotte, right? This is Charlotte Fay, Jessica's daughter, and that's why she's here; Jodi did mention that the Fays were helping her parents out. Tacoma's never heard anyone call her Charlie before, but then, she barely knows her; she's just a kid who lives two doors down.
Anyway. There has to be a reason why she prefers Charlie to Charlotte. And judging by what the two of them have just said, it might well be the same reason why Jodi prefers Jodi to Alex.
Tacoma is stunned. Somehow it never occurred to her that there might be more than one person like Jodi, even though she knew there must be. Even if she'd thought about it, she would have guessed that Jodi had to be the only one in Mahogany.
But then – Jodi didn't know till recently, right? And Charlie sure as hell wouldn't have found out that this was an option for her any other way.
He, even. Tacoma should stop saying she. She wouldn't call Jodi he; she should extend Charlie the same courtesy.
“I'm sorry for being creepy,” says Charlie. “I heard about you, and it was like … you can do that? But I didn't want to ask because – well, because Mum and Dad have been talking about you, and, um – sorry, but, um …”
“It's fine,” says Jodi, although Tacoma gets the distinct impression that it is not. “I'm guessing they don't get it.”
“No.” Charlie sniffs again. “They don't.”
This feels like the kind of silence in which someone is trying to find the right words.
“Okay, Charlie,” says Jodi. “I don't want to rush you or anything, and I think that this probably isn't the best time or place to have this conversation. But I want to ask you one thing right now, and I'd like you to answer without thinking about what your parents are saying. Can you do that for me?”
“… okay.”
Charlie's voice is very small. Tacoma is in awe of Jodi's capacity to deal with this; she herself would have been completely lost the first time Charlie started showing any sign of distress at all.
“Do you really want to be a girl?”
Charlie swallows.
“No,” he says, so quietly Tacoma almost misses it. “No, I don't.”
“Then you're not one,” says Jodi. “Only you get to make that decision. You wanna be a boy, you can be.”
“I can?”
The disbelief in his voice is painful to hear. He really didn't think anyone would ever say anything like this to him, did he? So he's been skulking around these past couple of weeks, staring at the one person in town brave enough to do what he wishes he could and sinking deeper and deeper into the green slough of envy.
This is what it is, Tacoma realises. This was Jodi, once. Tacoma imagines her alone in a room in a strange city with no company but Lothian and these thoughts, this pain; she imagines what it would be like if there wasn't a cool older kid to swoop in and turn the hurt into an idea you could hold and act upon. If you had to figure it out for yourself. If, when you did, you had to take that terrifying leap alone.
She never asked. She thought about it, that one time, but Tacoma never once asked how long Jodi has known, or how strewn with thorns the road that led to her introducing herself by her new name that morning really was. And now, listening to Charlie, Tacoma realises that even a connoisseur of self-loathing like herself probably only has a partial view of what that must have been like.
Shameful, to have left it so long. But so what; she's always ashamed. Better to be glad, right? Better to be glad that Jodi is here for Charlie, that one person at least gets a shoulder to lean on as he figures this shit out.
She tries it on for size: gladness, bright and crisp as morning in early autumn. It doesn't fit very well, and a moment later she throws it off again, unable to bear it one more second.
At least she tried, huh.
With her lost in thought, the conversation slips away from her; when she comes back to it, Charlie is apologising again and Jodi is telling him that it's fine, really, she is more than happy to be here.
“You know you're stuck with me whether you want me or not, now,” she says. “And you have my number, right?”
“Yeah. Same as …”
“As Ella's. Just ask for me.” Brief pause. “I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can stay,” says Jodi. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I-I don't know.”
“Sorry, wrong question. Do you feel better?”
“Yeah.” Tacoma can hear the smile in his words, faint and surprised. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Good. Call me soon, okay? We should talk some more.”
“Yes. Yes, we― yeah. I'd, um, I'd really like that.”
Rustling.
“Hey,” says Jodi. “You did something real difficult. And I'm sorry, there's a lot of difficult things to come, but still, you should be proud. Okay?”
She sounds almost like Michelle for some reason, the Goldenrod gloss wearing away from her words and revealing the Mahogany beneath.
“Yeah,” says Charlie – hesitant, fearful, hardly daring to believe what he's hearing. “Okay.”
Tacoma finally cuts the connection.
“I'm not bloody crying,” she says, but of course even if there was anyone around to hear her they wouldn't be fooled for a moment.
It's been a hell of a morning. Con, Nick, Charlie – and then, when they get back, Ella and Nikki, too. Jodi takes one and Tacoma the other, and by the time they end up in the same room as each other again it's past two o'clock.
“Okay,” says Jodi, coming back into her room and holding the door for Lothian. “That was a lot of lying I just did, and I don't know if she believed all of it, but I guess it's okay. I can tell her the truth when we're done.” She shuts the door, slumps in her chair while Lothian climbs on the bed. “Oof. I'm sorry, I've had a bunch of distractions. Are you okay? I know you weren't really expecting to go back home today …”
It's the first time they've spoken since their conversation on Tacoma's doorstep; Jodi might have tried to talk to her on the way home, but Tacoma had the window closed. Needed a little time alone, after her awful, silent house and that whole awkward thing with Charlie.
“'M fine,” she replies, from her usual perch in Nikki's claws. “Are you?”
“I honestly don't know.” Jodi sets her elbow on the desk and rests her head on her hand. “I feel so … weird. I mean, there was Con, and I didn't even know he was – I knew he didn't like me, but I wasn't expecting that.” She closes her eyes. “Should've done, I guess. People feel like they can get away with things. With me, I mean.”
“Yeah?” asks Tacoma.
“Yeah.” Jodi smiles without opening her eyes. “It's sweet of you to get angry on my behalf, but you don't need to.”
“Someone has to. You let them get away with that?”
Now Jodi opens her eyes, but there's no trace of a smile at all on her lips.
“They'd do it with or without my permission,” she says. “And there are so many of them, Tacoma. I can't fight every single battle. I don't have the time or energy to back that many lost causes.”
Well, Tacoma's screwed up again, hasn't she. Great. True friendship, right there.
“Sorry,” she mutters. “I guess I wouldn't know.”
“It's okay.”
“No it― sorry. Never mind.” Perfect recovery, Tacoma. Bloody flawless. “Anyway, uh, so Con's a giant mound of dickcheese, but Charlie, huh?”
There: the smile is back like a sunbeam piercing clouds. Almost enough to make Tacoma jealous, honestly. Be nice if her name made Jodi smile like that.
“Yeah,” says Jodi. “That's why 'weird' and not 'awful', I guess. I mean … two of us, here in Mahogany? What are the odds?”
“Pretty low, probably.”
“You're telling me. I barely know anyone like me in Goldenrod.” Slow shake of her head. “Guess we really need to come out of this okay now, huh? I'm not gonna get eaten while Charlie needs me like that.”
What about me, Tacoma's jealousy wants to know, what if I need you – but she jams the words back down her throat. Not everything is for her. This thing that Charlie and Jodi share? That is not something that needs Tacoma's intervention. Or that of anyone who isn't … like them.
There's probably a word for that, for the opposite of Jodi. Tacoma has always been the one with the vocabulary, but she feels like Jodi probably has her beat in this particular area.
“Sure,” she says. “Kinda figured it's not the sort of thing you wanna do alone.”
“No,” says Jodi. “It's not.”
“Mm.” Tacoma shifts uneasily on her thread. “About that. Did you, um, wanna talk about it?”
“Not today.” Jodi seems unsurprised by the question, which Tacoma supposes is actually pretty reasonable for a psychic. “That's a conversation I'm gonna have to prepare for, and I'm really not up to that now.”
“That's cool too,” Tacoma hastens to assure her. “Really. I just – thought I'd ask.”
“Thank you.” Jodi smiles. “You're sweet.”
“Sometimes. So, uh, you gonna show me that machine Nick made or what?”
“Oh. Right.” Jodi laughs. “You know, I almost forgot about that. Actually no, I honestly just completely lost track of why we even went to your house in the first place. Sorry. Lothi? Can you get my coat?”
He squeaks and drags it over to her, where she goes through the pockets and comes up with an old cigarette tin, cut apart and soldered inelegantly back together around a tangle of wires and diodes. Two scraps of plastic glued to the side, one red, one blue. Just like Nick said.
“Doesn't look like much,” says Tacoma. “That little thing can send that monster home?”
“I really hope so. I didn't get a chance to ask Nick if he'd tested it.”
“He seemed to think it would work.”
“Yeah. Hopefully that means it'll put an end to this.”
She's talking like they already know what's going to happen tonight. And sure, they do, but Tacoma was hoping for – well, for she doesn't know what, really. Something. Some idea, some line of enquiry, that would mean that her very mortal friend doesn't have to go back to the chapter house.
There's nothing, of course. But she figures she might as well argue about it anyway.
“So we're going,” she says. “Are you sure?”
Jodi gives her a look.
“Aren't you?”
For all her long words, Tacoma has no answer for that. Aren't you? Meaning – you saw what's down there, you know what they do with it, and you still doubt? You still think that we can walk away with our hands clean? That if we see evil in the world we are not obliged to make a stand?
Yes, Tacoma doubts. No, she doesn't think that they can walk away without guilt. She just wants to do it anyway, and if that means blood on their hands then so be it, they will hold their bloody hands and talk about things more important than the loss of other people's loved ones. And eventually they'll get over it.
But Jodi doesn't think that way. Nor does Nick. He gave them his machine on the condition that they use it. And as much as Tacoma doesn't want that responsibility, it looks like she's going to have to shoulder it.
Fuck it. Lying hasn't been doing her any favours; let's try honesty for once.
“I don't know if I ever could be,” she says. “Not sure if I'm that … kind of person. But, uh. I think you are. So I'm with you, I guess. And if anyone tries to kill you, I guess I'll beat the shit out of them with their shadow.”
Jodi stares. For so long, in fact, that Tacoma starts to regret saying anything. And then she smiles (sunbeams again), and glances up at Nikki.
“Can I?” she asks, reaching out, and then when Nikki blinks her assent lays her hand on the thin tendril of fog that binds Tacoma to the rock. “Thanks,” she says, returning her gaze to Tacoma. “As for you … that was really sweet. Right up till the part where it got violent, but you know, it's all part of your charm.”
Tacoma tries to smile, because this is a joke and you are supposed to smile at these, but even with Jodi's hand on her she can't manage it.
“Just don't die tonight,” she says. “Think you can swing that?”
Jodi considers this for a moment, and then nods. Something about how deliberate this movement is makes it seem much more comforting.
“I will do everything I can,” she replies, simply. “I hope that's good enough.”
And it isn't, really, but what are you gonna do, so Tacoma nods back.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”
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