2020-02-11 - About a (Dead) Guy

It's not that August doesn't trust Father Oren, it's that Father Oren is new. He's an unknown party when it comes to the Veil and the Art, even if he clearly has it, which means August isn't comfortable asking him certain things. ...fine, so he doesn't trust him. But Thewlis is someone August knows to a limited extent. At the very least, he knows Thewlis is Informed<tm>.

So he comes back to Gardens of Eternal Rest later in the day, bundled up against the cold. He's sore and achy and probably should be resting, but what he wants, is get to the bottom of what happened last night. Something did, and now, he and Eleanor are shocking things, he could swear he saw her burn a sheet of paper, and Gohl is gone like he'd never even been buried in the first place.

So he comes to the Gardens, seeking Thewlis, hoping he won't have reacted to the mess last night--whatever it was--by taking a day off. (A rude thing to hope for, but here we are.)

Thew is practically married to his work, which is something that Jade thankfully understands and allows for. He's in the gardens... He's even brought out the back-ho, having gone through the winding zig-zags to get to where Billy's grave -was- when he'd seen it on his previous rounds. Half a grave deep of mechanically pulled earth, and the other three digging by hand - Thew is in a pit... where a grave should be and he looks between pissed and panic'd at the fact that there's never been one here either.

He doesn't hear August coming, which is a testament to his focus - the man lives with his head on a swivel, especially due to his mother, and all he can do is look around this pit, hands in his pockets, cold, wet, and annoyed.

Very annoyed.

It's doubtful more than a half dozen have even seen this side of the town's grave-digging movie houser.

August can't say he's seen Thewlis like this before, but he absolutely doesn't blame him, because August feels the same. Annoyed, tired, frustrated...pissed the fuck off. After all the effort they went through to bury that son of a bitch, after all they sacrificed--

Well. That sure was Gray Harbor for you.

He moves closer to Thewlis and his work, staying quiet a spell. After a minute or so of watching, he says, "Nothing, right?" He doesn't sound like he expects anything but confirmation.

He's too angry to even be frightened by the voice. No jumping, flinching, ducking or risk of panic.

"N-n-no-ho-hohhhh-hohhh..." he throws down his shovel... and the thing is incinerated on its way down, the part of the shovel attached to the handle growing cherry red as the wood is obliterated.

"Notta d-d-da-ham-hammm th-thing!" kicking the destroyed shovel head across the pit before he blinks and looks up suddenly, deer in headlights... at least until he recognizes the man he saw whip a fireball in the Murphy house.

August winces at the destroyed shovel. Well, Eleanor'd nuked the coffee maker this morning, so he can relate. When Thewlis stares at him like that, August holds up a hand to stall any protestations, concerns, or Thewlis leaping out of that half-dug grave and running for it. "It's okay. I know you're," he waves a hand, and a few embers flutter from his fingertips, bright sparks in the chill winter air, "like me." He considers Thewlis a moment, then signs, ASL? eyebrows up.

There is a look of utter relief at the hand motions, and Thew is signing back quickly in rapid order.

Yes, I speak sign. Thanks. Much easier than talking. I remember you. From the house. With the thing with the man's body... Thew looks around and with a practiced motion he's got a hand on one side of the pit with a quick leap, and then he's pushing out diagonally to get out to the ground.

Do you know what happened? I woke up early in the morning, and I had to concentrate to do things I had been able to do before for years... Did someone push the Other Town further away?

Brows knitting, dusting himself off, leaving the shovel head. -Something- buried at least

August half-smiles for the thanks, and nods in agreement about it being easier. He watches Thewlis sign; August is conversant, if not fluent, so he's a little slower to process all the gestures and formulate is own, but he's entirely understandable.

Don't know. Someone told me he'd had a dream. He reconsiders that sign. Nightmare. It sounded like something that had happened to him before, related to. He points at the grave. Came here to check, the priest showed me. Showed him the pristine ground, like it had never been dug, no headstone set. Nothing.

He sighs, rubs at his face. I can make electricity now. Didn't used to be able to do that. Not sure if I lost something. He eyes Thewlis. What's harder?

'I used to be able to' Thew pauses as if wondering how to word it... with his hands. Hand word! 'well my girlfriend and I, we could feel one another. Then I couldn't. And suddenly I can shoot' another pause and a blink, 'Crappy lightning?'

Obviously not sure of how to word it, but he holds his hands together, causing the crackle to form. 'I blew out my damn toaster.' shaking his head, 'I spent... I mean. I sat up... and I focused, and I wanted, and I willed - and I got the connection back... but it made me so tired I passed right out back to sleep.'

Another frown on his face and Thewlis admits, 'And I can only throw fire or start things up. I can't control it anymore.'

August scratches his beard, taking that all in. He nods at the lightning, holds out a hand and produces a bit of his own: long, blue-purple threads dance between his fingers. He frowns, and finally, it stops. 'Haven't tried directing fire. The thrown fire is more accurate for me, now. It goes where I want it to.'

He licks his lips, raises his eyebrows. 'Do you mind if I have a look at your Art?'

Shrugging and taking a moment of consideration, Thew just nods finally and stands waiting for August to inspect him, allowing himself to be viewed. It's an obvious struggle, opening up - but the need for answers seem to be weighing out more.

Noting Thewlis' struggle with that, August signs a thank you. He looks somewhere just past Thewlis' shoulder; after a spell his eyes narrow in concentration. Eventually Thewlis feels the featherlight touch of August looking him over, taking in the shape of his Art.

It's over almost as soon as it's begun. August blinks and focuses on Thewlis again. 'I've been able to talk to anyone who had the mind Art for a while. And at any distance, once I came here. Maybe we need to be stronger to do it, now.' He doesn't look convinced about that, though; it's a guess, at most. He sighs, looks down at his left hand, which sparks with blue-lavender lightning for a moment. He smiles, rueful. 'Going to take getting used to.'

"I don't mind using that... talking in minds, if someone is comfortable with it' signing again as he looks to his own hands, 'I bought rubber gloves, to see.' shrugging with a 'worth a shot' sort of expression on his face. 'I'm not very refined... I just... I usually just worked with the healing, and fixing... I guess now I'll need to focus elsewhere too.'

Said the shining beacon of psychic spooky wizardom, to the other shining beacon of spooky psychic wizardom, as they discussed their friggin powers like it was Tuesday.

Friggin' Psychic Wizards.

Ah, life in Gray Harbor, where the psychics stand around chatting in sign about their Other Selves.

'I'm okay with people I know well.' August's expression makes that a general agreement. 'But some are uncomfortable with it.' He looks like he can name names, but doesn't. He narrows his eyes at the idea of rubber gloves. 'Clever. I'll tell Eleanor to try that.' His mouth flattens; he has to wonder if she's had trouble with it at work, today.

A shrug about refinement, or lack thereof. 'What's refinement worth, when it's changing out from under us all the time. First the range, now...' He looks down at the hole, empty but for the decapitated shovel. 'This.'

'I've... always been good at destruction. It comes on instinct. Defense.' Thew looks a little shame faced at that now 'I shattered some highschool punk's leg once, when they jumped me out here.' head ducking down at that and knitting his brows.

'I think this is why it's changed. People are gone. People 'bigger' than a lot of us, and what we think we are. Just need to find out who.'

August grimaces, sympathetic but also a little wry. 'Using the shaping Art on people's hard for me.' He lets that sit. 'Plants and things is easy.'

Gone. He turns that over in his head. 'You mean not just dead, but, he looks at the half-dug grave, erased?'

'As if never dug before. No stone. No coffin, not even sign it'd ever been dug' Glaring at the hole while he signs, looking angry again, and maybe a touch worried - as if expecting Billy to leap into view perhaps.

'This stinks, and I also wonder if it's like the flu.'

August makes a low sound. 'It read that way too.' He doesn't use the usual sign for 'read' here; it's a combined one, implying reading not with his eyes, but the Glimmer. 'Pristine. Not even the other grave grass is that clean.'

He squints, about the flu. 'I think that was different. There's someone Over There. The Vivisectionist.' That's a complex sign, implying she's not just some sort of scientist. 'They do experiments. It was one of theirs.' He makes a face. 'I think they work with, or for, FCN.' He signs each letter separately. 'A company Over There.' Again he eyes the partially-dug grave. 'Might be related. Might not.'

'It's an avenue for thought.' Thewlis signs and sighs, looking down below. 'At least it doesn't look like it's Them' a long pause before that last word and he gives a deep shiver from spine to neck. He even looks over his shoulders, head fully on a swivel now, twitching and chewing on his lip like it was a dog toy.

'I wish this shit was easier to track.' Ah yes, the great ASL sign for that body function. The thumb pulled out the fist. Glorious.

August makes a face. 'Not so sure it's not Them.' He seems apologetic for having to say that. 'They have...agents. People on their side. Might be one of them did this, at Their direction.'

He grins at the sign. It's a genuine grin, not tainted by the nature of their situation. 'Same. Seems like the Other Side...corrupts, things we record. Yule,' he spells the name, so it's clear he's not signing 'Christmas' or similar, 'is looking for a way around that. So we can study this.' A tacit suggestion Thewlis chat with him, if he has a chance.

'Maybe we have to write it down only? Or record it there?' Wishing he knew more now, Thewlis looks back into the pit and draws out a smoke to tuck in his mouth, the end igniting as he takes a drag.

'I suppose they don't bother with writing, because then it's just psychopath's journals...' hands tucking into his coat pockets for a few moments to warm back up before he pulls them out to continue 'I'd never bothering to record it, photo, video, whichever. I think because of all the study I've done... cryptozoology stuff. A lot of them are noted as being 'immune' to being recorded. Hence no photos. But natural it's impossible to prove or disprove.'

August nods in confirmation. 'Anything too explicit...' He considers what to sign here. Eventually, he goes with, 'degrades. Loses cohesiveness. If you take a picture with your phone, it'll be blurry or won't open. With writing, the materials fall apart. Yule is working on a way to stop that, but,' his expression darkens as he thinks of the failed experiment Yule described to him, 'it's slow going.'

He sighs, also looks into the hole. 'Which is why none of us knew very much about it, until we came here, I suppose. It's a wrinkle in reality that smooths itself when it can.'

'What about tattoos of some of the information? Like that flick Memento?' Thew ponders, spit balling now by the 'sign' of it.

Ha.

'I wonder if we captured someone from Over There, if they could be held onto and questioned about this.' Looking down into the hole, more and then signing distractedly. 'I don't think it's even -thin- in there. I think that pisses me off even more.'

August tilts his head at the notion of tattoos. He looks honestly intrigued by the possibility. 'Maybe things like that would work. Art. Allow for it to keep, because it's easy to discount the meaning or reason for art.' Now that he's thinking of it, he extends that too, 'Maybe if it's written not as something which factually happened, but a story. Encoded, so it might hold.' He lifts his eyesbrows to see what Thewlis thinks of that.

He makes a face, shakes his head at the notion of leaning on someone from the Other Side for information. 'Don't know we'd have any idea who to ask.'

'Analogous recording could work, rather than biographic or anecdotal.' Thewlis looks back to August, frowning and looking down as he rummages through his own head.

'Hera, at the art gallery. There is a new woman in town too, lives in the RV park. Tara.' Hands flying now as he thinks, simply signing for Juno/Hera of the Roman/Greek pantheons to supply the first name as he considers. 'If we could make it work like that, they would be good starts.'

'I'll mention it to Isabella as something we can try.' She's an archaeologist after all, and how much of ancient civilizations was as much the stories they told to explain things they couldn't as what they actually got up to? August figures that's a gimme. 'And Itzhak, he's a musician, and in a band.' He can't honestly believe he just signed that. 'So maybe they could make music.' He thinks of the poem, from the open mic night. Yes, this might be the way to go.

He checks his watch, sighs. 'I should get going. Need to check in at work before I sleep for the rest of the day.' He offers a hand to Thewlis for shaking.

The hand coming out draws a brief wide eyed look, but after a moment of consideration, Thew reaches to take it. It's not a great shake. No wet fish. But clearly the shake of a man who lives in abject terror of physical contact, for whatever reason he has.

"Suh-huh-hounds good." speaking finally now. "I nuh-nh-kno-hoe Itzhak t-t-to." bobbing his head a few times now. "G-g-oo-hoo-hood t'see you aga-ha-hah-hen."

That hesitation causes August to substitute his usual firm handshake for a more relaxed, casual one. If he's perturbed by the lack of a proper, manly handshake, there's no sign of it. In fact, he just gives Thewlis a small, tired smile.

"Good to see you again too. Take care of yourself, yeah?" A final glance into the partially (re-dug) grave, then August stuffs his hands in his pockets and heads back for his car.