2020-06-14 - Haunted Cabin

Eleanor has been at the cabin today while August was in town at work. She took care of the critters who all seem fed and healthy, but some of them are also riled up. The geese are a honking, and the little teacup piggies are milling around uneasily.

Inside, the window coverings have all been drawn, something that Eleanor hasn't been doing as much lately. She's been doing so well, with the reflections thing, and the forest thing, but something has apparently set her off today. She's huddled in front of the woodstove, wrapped in a blanket, like a human-sized burrito.

The sound of August's Outback returning from work briefly overlays the excited honks of the geese and muttering of ducks and chickens. The door opens and shuts, and he calls out to them, "Hey girls. Did you behave? Everyone on their best behavior for Ellie?" He pauses when he sees the pigs are restless and the geese are more agitated than hopeful for food. He stills, on the alert, tense. No, it's fine--Ellie would have called, or texted, right? Right. Except the windows are all covered.

His footsteps clomp up the steps of the deck, and in he comes. He's a little scuffed here and there--the trees are still feeling the surge of spring, it would seem--but no new significant injuries are apparent. His Glimmer's still not quite itself, if stronger since his sojourn in space.

"Hon?" He scans the interior, spies her by the woodstove. His anxiety spikes, making the cabin floor creak as his Art fights to respond to Whatever Has Gone Wrong. He all but drops his workbag and barely pauses to take off his boots before heading over to her. "Hey." He kneels down, tries to reign in his panic.

Ellie rocks in her blanket, her arms wrapped around her knees, the latter drawn up to her chin. "She found me. She found me," she whispers hoarsely, her face tear streaked. "If she can find me, so can he." She looks pale, deeply shaken, and she curls into his bulkier frame as if for shelter.

Her hair looks a bit wild. She'd been outside doing chores and had come in to wash up when it happened. She's still in the sweats and tee she'd been wearing to do those tasks, and he can probably get a whiff of this critter or that on her, because they all get plenty of scritches and pettings when she feeds them.

August gathers Eleanor up without hesitation. He smells like sweat from a long day of work, pine and spruce, and a little bit of wet soil and the plants he was helping with in the allotments. He kisses her forehead, tucks her head under his chin. What he wants to say is 'He can come and fucking get some,' but he knows that's a useless response right now. For one thing, he's under power; for another, it won't help Eleanor one bit for that thing to come sauntering on through the door.

A tremor passes through him. "I'm sorry, baby." He grips her tight. "Was it a Dream?" God, what a thought, that they could haul her off whenever they felt like it. Reach out through a mirror, just like the first time.

Ellie clings to him, still trembling. "No, no I don't think it was a Dream. I was fully awake and fully on this side. I think it was Addie's ghost. All the ghosts popping up around the town anniversary, I should have expected it. I just didn't expect to see her, not out here. She was in the bathroom mirror. I may have cracked it." With a panicked thought of course.

"She said that he won't let her go, not until I help him. If I help him, he'll let her go into the light." She swallows thickly, tears spilling over again. "She's been trapped all this time, because I've been afraid."

August goes rigid. Her ghost, in his cabin, tormenting Eleanor. The windows rattle in their frames. Nevermind Eleanor cracking the bathroom mirror, he's half a second from smashing it to pieces.

Her tears bring him back to himself. He quashes any destructive tendencies, kisses her temple. "Hey, no," he murmurs, looks down and nudges her chin, encouraging her to look up at him. "No. You were a little girl when that all happened. You had no way to know that had happened. None at all. Protecting yourself, staying safe--that's rational. Normal. Whatever's been happening this whole time isn't your fault." They can discuss what to do now that she does know later.

He falls quiet a moment. Then, "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting."

"She was my best friend," Ellie whispers quietly. She looks up at him, with watery eyes. He knows that look. He's worn it himself. The self-blame for something out of his control, but something harder to shrug off in spite of all rationality.

"How does that thing need my help? How do I help it? I'm just a coffee shop owner. I don't know how to help man-moose-deer-tree things!" She's frustrated, clearly.

"She was," August agrees. He strokes Eleanor's hair. "And you did the best you could, with what you knew. That it didn't save her--that's not a failing of yours." He doesn't say what it is a failing of, since they've discussed that half to death: that the knowledge of Glimmer, the Art, the Song, isn't passed on. It's not taught, only learned in harsh and scarring lessons.

He sighs at her question, makes a low sound. "You said the forest was damaged, right? Dying, or dead?" He raises his eyebrows. "Maybe that's what it wants--if Addie was a Spiritualist, maybe it wanted her to heal the forest." He makes a face. "Only real way to know is to ask it, probably."

Eleanor nods slowly, the offering of a possibility pulling her out of her trembling state. "Yes, it was all dead, dark and dead. I think maybe...maybe you're on to something. It might need help healing it's forest." He can see the wheels start to turn behind her eyes. A puzzle to solve, research to do, it's all a good way to center and ground the redhead. The thought of asking Modr makes her shiver for a moment, and beneath her phoenix tattoo she feels a throb from her scars. "Probably."

August relaxes as Eleanor does, feels less inclined to smash the cabin until he can find the ghost and kick it out like it's an invading pest chewing on his food and making a nest under the oven. He's irrationally angry about this situation he can't fix. No, he's irrationally angry that it's upsetting Eleanor.

But like her, he feels better when solutions and plans are on the table. "We don't have to ask it immediately," he assures her. "And you don't have to ask it alone." What he means is 'you are the hell not doing this alone' but manages to not say that. "First, maybe dig around, see if there's other stories about it. Maybe someone saw something, or heard something."

"Right, right, research. I can do that. And maybe grab a few people, like Itzhak to get us in and out. Maybe some heavy hitters." Eleanor is slowly regaining herself as plans are made and tasks are set. "I'll talk to Alexander Clayton. He may have heard something over the years."

"Right. And...we'll need to figure out how to find it." August makes a face. How did one find a Veil creature? He shakes his head, sets that aside. "How about we go back to your house in the mean time. If she's showing up here, I'd rather you be somewhere you feel safer. And your study's there." And maybe Addie can't make it that far. Was that how ghosts worked? He mutters, "We should also ask Alexander about ghost-proofing."

Eleanor lets out a breath. "She wasn't angry or threatening, so I suppose it could have been worse. I just felt like I was twelve again, helpless in the face of something so far beyond me. But it's not so far beyond now. I'm a grown ass woman. I have Glimmer. I have knowledge. I can do this. We can do this." She looks up at him with a tired smile. "Sorry about the bathroom mirror."

August makes a low sound in his throat. How many times, in how many different ways, had he faced that himself? Any time he healed someone, any time a Dream came a little too close to home. "That's how it is, with that kind of thing. You're that person again. It doesn't matter how much has come and gone. You're there, in that moment." Powerless. Weak. Confused. Dying, with everyone dying around you.

He flinches, shakes his head. "That's what They want. So fighting back with a plan's the best solution." Another kiss for her hair. "Don't worry about the mirror. I wanted to get a nice new frame, maybe burlwood."

"I don't want to go back to my place. I'm not afraid of Addie's ghost. If she comes back here, maybe she can tell us more, August. I want to stay. Maybe it's time for me to be the one needing a long bath." Eleanor smiles faintly at that, then sobers again. "I won't let things Over There chase me out of your home. Our home. They already took enough from me in my lifetime, they can't have this too."

August studies Eleanor for a long, contemplative minute. Everything she's just said has struck him, particularly calling the cabin 'our home'. He takes her hand and kisses the ring on her finger, then her palm, sets her hand on his chest. "Okay," he says. He glances down between them. "I want you to be happy. And if that's what you want, that's what we'll do." He smiles, slow and a bit tired. "I can draw you up a bath and get dinner started while you soak. How's that sound?"

"That sounds like I am the luckiest woman on Earth. How did I ever wind up with such a wonderful human being to love?" Eleanor leans up to kiss his cheek gently, looking much more herself, now that she's found her footing, and a purpose from all of this. Purpose seems to be the best thing for her in times of crisis.

August leans into the kiss. "Mmmm, pretty sure I'm the lucky one," he murmurs. He sighs, pulls her against him for a few seconds in a quick, tight hug. "Just don't think you have to take this on alone. You don't. And I hope you'll ask for any help you need. I know I can't...insist you let me help. But I hope you will."

Ellie returns the hug tightly and lets out a breath, relief flowing through her. "I will, we are in this life together now, you and I. We have each other's backs." She leans back to look at him with a genuine smile. "I love you, AJ."

The reassurance relaxes August some. He won't pretend he's not terrified of the idea of Eleanor plunging headlong, alone, into the Veil after the creature that killed her friend. So this goes a long way towards convincing him that's not likely.

He lays a hand along her cheek. "We're in this together," he agrees. He leans forward to kiss her, sweet and light, rests his face against her hair. "I love you, Ellie." He stays that way a bit, terrified and happy at the same time. They had so much to lose to Gray Harbor's ugliness. There were no guarantees anything would work out. All they could do was try.

And trying is the best way to fight the darkness from Over There. It's not all death and horror, some of it is beautiful and magical and wondrous, and gives them abilities that make them more than human. Maybe if they bolster the good, and take down the evil, everything will be better on both sides.

Eleanor releases him finally. "Ok, I'm gonna pour myself a glass of wine while you draw that bath. Do me a favor though, and cover up that mirror. I'm just not ready to see Addie again right this minute."

"Will do." August gives her another quick kiss to the forehead, gets up and offers her a hand. "Figure we can have some turkey a la King. Easy to make, and I've got plenty of bird." Despite the bust of that last day of the season, he did quite well.

Once she's on her feet, he's off to the bathroom, pausing at the linen closet to grab a flat sheet. He stares at his reflection, split and uneven from the crack Eleanor accidentally made. He sighs, tosses the dark gray, striped sheet over it. Addie and the thing in the forest can wait.