She nodded slowly. "So when you said you were trying to rescue a friend…"
"Her body had been killed and her essence gathered. If we could get her essence back, it would inhabit something and eventually become a new body for her," Hiraeth said in a teacherly way, as if it had nothing to do with him at all. "We Others are not easy to kill, as long as our essence survives."
"What's an Other?" she asked.
That gave Hiraeth pause. "Oh," he said, in a very small voice.
Keith looked at him quickly. If Hiraeth had been eager throughout the rest of this conversation, that had taken the wind out of his sails. A genuine hurt seemed to pass through him, hovering around him like a cloud that Hiraeth himself was actively trying to disperse.
"There are two worlds overlaid into one," Hiraeth said finally, his tone light again but, Keith thought, a little strained. "The Overworld and the Otherworld. They exist in the same place at the same time. Humans are people like my friend Keith here, though he's a rare exception to their inability to see the Otherworld. Some humans like him have the second sight, the ability to see both worlds at once, the way Others can. So what's the difference? Humans live fast and hard and their essences usually leave after death. I'm an Other. We live slowly and gently and our essences linger."
"What is a ghost," Marion asked. "And a Terror?"
"Ghosts are human souls that don't disperse, due to forming some kind of bond at their death. It is usually, but not always, due to trauma," Hiraeth said.
Keith felt that awful grief welling up in him and forced himself to swallow it down.
"Sometimes, after they stick around a very long time, their attachments get lost or muddied, and if they fail to do whatever it is human essences do, they eventually lose themselves and become a Terror. So ghosts are neither Other nor human. I guess that he can't collect human souls normally because they disperse too fast, but that's why he could get both Others and a ghost like Lucas."
Marion said, "The ghost in the manor was gathering Other essences and studying memories."
"Yes," Hiraeth said. "It sounds that way."
She said, more slowly, "When he met Keith's friend, he wanted to collect him. A ghost would be more useful than an Other, he said. He wanted to kill Keith, too, in the hopes of getting a second ghost."
"Yeah," Keith said, mouth dry.
"Doesn't that mean he thinks he's about to become a Terror and wants to keep himself from forgetting?"
Keith's heart began to hammer. He hadn't thought about it in that much detail, hadn't been able to focus well enough to put two and two together. But she was right. The pieces all fit. That meant that he was going to experiment on Lucas—probably immediately, if he was so eager to get a ghost. That Lucas was going to have something done to him, that while he was sitting here being sad, Lucas was being hurt.
Hiraeth was carefully not looking at him. "I think so," he said. "He was probably a human with sight when he was alive, and perhaps some kind of wizard, since he can enchant things like your mirror. I imagine someone like that would especially not want to lose themself."
"And… if I wasn't good enough," she began slowly. "If he thought I should remember something but didn't, does that mean I was one of those Other essences, and what he did to me made me forget…?"
"Yes," Hiraeth said. "I think you were an Other who was captured, and instead of having the time to fill a vessel naturally, you were forced to fill one quickly and have forgotten who you were as a result."
"I want to remember," she burst out.
Keith was speaking at the same time, talking over her, raw and aching. "I need to save Lucas."
Once it was out of his mouth, he felt, suddenly, very calm. It was that simple. He'd go back to the house and find Lucas's bottle and get out of there, and all the panic, fear, and horror in the world didn't matter. He wasn't going to let Lucas get experimented on or damaged or lost. It was one thing for an Other to lose their memories, clearly, but if a ghost did… they already knew what happened to those.
He thought of the Terrors he'd seen attacking Others in his dreams, and the ones that he'd had the misfortune to run across once or twice before, those hideous mindless masses. He set his jaw.
He wouldn't let that happen to Lucas.
Hiraeth raised both hands, one palm pointed toward Keith, the other toward Marion, trying to mediate between them. Keith almost wanted to laugh. There was no conflict between their goals, if only because they had nothing to do with one another. Marion could try to figure out her memories, and Keith would go back to the house—alone, if necessary.
"Okay," Hiraeth said soothingly. "I have an idea. It's almost even a plan."
"What is it?" Marion asked. Keith sipped his soda and wondered distantly if anyone would stop him if he got up right now.
Keeping his hands up between them, Hiraeth said, "We have to go in after Lucas again, no doubt about that. But we can't go now—"
That got Keith's attention again—he focused in like he couldn't hear anything else. "We have to," he protested. "I need to go before… before he can do anything to him."
Hiraeth turned to face him fully. His expression had lost that faint longing and was entirely concern. Even feeling around him with his vague scraps of empathy, Keith couldn't pick up much else. Worry, a background pulse of loss, concern.
Hope.
It was such an incongruous feeling that he drew a shuddering breath in when he noticed it. What was there to hope for in this? He didn't even think he'd succeed in getting Lucas back, but he had to try.
It was that hope that kept him in his seat, kept him from pushing past and just leaving.
Did Hiraeth have a plan?
Could he?
"I know," Hiraeth said, after a long moment of just looking at him. Assessing him. He leaned in a little, putting his hand on Keith's chest, over his heart. "I understand your feelings."
That, too, twisted a knife in him. He opened his mouth to retort, to talk back, and felt his words die.
When Hiraeth had been in a similar situation with the bone girl, it had been Keith who cautioned him to wait. It had been Keith suggesting plans, coming up with options. And that hadn't gone well, Keith reminded himself grimly. But Hiraeth and the bone girl were friends who went way back. Surely that was the same thing.
It didn't feel like the same thing. It would be unfair to protest, wrong of him, but it lodged in his chest anyway. Lucas is more to me than the bone girl is to you.
He managed, at least, not to say it.
"I understand your feelings," Hiraeth repeated firmly. "But going right now would just guarantee failure. I promise you that. It's too late in the day. It'll be dark by the time we got there if we left now, and the Terrors will be fully active. The ghost himself probably will be too. Negative spirits are almost always more active at night."
Keith swallowed. It was almost exactly the same argument he'd made to Hiraeth. "Even if I go tomorrow, he made her downstairs." A nod to Marion. "I'll have to go into the unlit areas. Doesn't matter if it's dark."
"It's going to be unpleasant," Hiraeth agreed. "But even in dark areas, Terrors are less active and dangerous during the daytime, and negative spirits as well. If you know you're going to have to face them for sure, you want to go when they're weakest, not strongest."
That wasn't what Keith wanted to hear. He tried to take another sip of his drink to force the lump down, but his can was empty. He put it very carefully down next to the futon to keep himself from throwing it at the wall. "He wanted a ghost. So he'll start doing his experiments on Lucas right away. Don't you get it? If I don't go now, it'll be too late."
"That's possible," Hiraeth agreed. "But if he wanted a ghost, and hasn't caught one before now, he won't want to risk wasting him. He'll have to set up brand new experiments, and do so with a lot of care rather than rushing into them. He also was out and about using a lot of energy today. He may need to build his strength back up. I think we have time."
"You
didn't think we had time when it was the bone girl at stake." Despite himself, bitterness seeped into his words, with guilt washing in behind it.
Hiraeth blinked docilely, as if he'd completely missed the tone of it. "But I agreed with you about the safest option. Ah, there's another thing, too."
"What…"
Finally, Hiraeth dropped his hand from Lucas's chest, and used it to gesture at Marion. "I think it's possible you could help her find her memories."
"What?" Keith's jaw dropped briefly. It didn't make sense "How? I can't do that. I've never done anything like that."
"Could he? Is that a human thing…?" Marion asked, dubious.
"Not a human thing," Hiraeth said, in a blandly affable tone. "But Keith's a psychic. And his strongest abilities are in seeing memories. He can find memories associated with objects, and even see events that may not have happened yet, or which may be happening elsewhere." His eyes were glittering like the metal they resembled.
Keith was shaking his head, had started before Hiraeth even finished talking. "I've never done anything like that before."
"You've never had to," Hiraeth said lightly. "And maybe you won't be able to at all. But your abilities are changing, aren't they? You said that you moved things when previously you hadn't been able to."
"That's…" Keith wavered, remembering how it had felt to take pressure and turn it outward. The sound of Marion hitting the ground. "Yes, but that has nothing to do with digging up someone else's memories."
"But it does mean your psychic abilities are more widely opened than they were before. Maybe it's the amount of focus you had to put into getting the lights on—"
Despite his attempts to swallow it down, a bitter laugh rose in him. "No," he said. "No, that's not it. It's trauma."
"Ah…" Guilt flickered across Hiraeth's face.
"I got my second sight and other abilities when Lucas died saving my life," Keith said. His voice sounded rough to his own ears, as if it was tearing up his throat on the way out. "Way back then, he shoved me away. And in there, he shoved me away again. It felt… the same. All the memories flooding back… if anything triggered more power, it was him. Not me. Just him."
Drawing an unsteady breath in, Hiraeth squeezed Keith's shoulder. He wanted to shove it off, but knew that Hiraeth was trying to comfort him, and didn't—despite his resentment.
"I'm sorry," Hiraeth said. "But even so, if you got one new ability, you might have others. Or ones you have might be strengthened. And I think it's a good idea if you know what your arsenal is before you charge in. The worst possible situation would be if you could save him and weren't able to because you didn't know what you were capable of."
That, at least, was a good point. "All right," Keith said slowly. "But…"
"As a doll, she's both an object and a person, and you can see memories off objects. I think it's possible that you will be able to use abilities you already have, and maybe back them up with whatever new things are in you, and go looking for her memories," Hiraeth said calmly. He met Keith's eyes, held them steady, sympathetic but relentless. "I think it's worth a shot, and it might help us understand more about what's going on in there before we rush back in. And we will rush back in, I promise you."
It was a compelling argument, if still one that he didn't really want to hear. "I…" Keith drew a deep breath in and slowly let it out. "I mean, I don't know if it'll work. And I don't know if she's willing…?"
He glanced up at Marion again finally. She was leaning forward on her seat, watching him with her blank face, eyes fully open.
"I would like to remember," she said. "I don't like the thought that I don't know who I am. That I've forgotten."
"Besides," Hiraeth said, and even knowing he didn't mean any harm, it was impossible for Keith to not get his back up a little at the sound of his voice: deliberate, a little purring, driving the nail home, "it may be necessary later."
"Oh…?" Keith asked, cautiously.
Hiraeth spread his fingers, holding empty palms out to Keith. "I truly don't think the ghost will be able to start experimenting on Lucas until later," he said. "I genuinely don't. If I did, I'd push us to move faster. But if I'm wrong, he might end up like our friend here. And then you'll want some practice on having done it in order to get his memories back."
Keith's heart was abruptly doing the wrong thing, stuttering, pounding too hard. He breathed short, shallow breaths. “That's if whatever he does puts Lucas in a doll," he said shortly. "Instead of making him a Terror."
That hadn't seemed to occur to Hiraeth. Horror crossed his face—then his brows creased, and he brought one hand to his mouth, a finger curled over his lips, deep in thought. "Yes," he said finally. "But if he's a Terror, you'll definitely want to be able to get his memories back, and do it without any delay."
Hiraeth was right.
If he could learn this, if he could practice it on Marion, then his chances of saving Lucas would be much higher, whatever had happened to him. Even knowing he was being manipulated, he couldn't deny it.
Keith hung his head. "Alright," he whispered. "I'll try."
chapter eleven
With the attempt planned, Hiraeth seemed to really get into things. Keith, still feeling as if even breathing was too much effort, couldn't really appreciate the situation. "I've got a thing downstairs, hang on," Hiraeth said enthusiastically. "It's supposed to focus energies."
"And that should… help?" Keith asked dubiously.
"Your senses are just energy use, aren't they?" he asked, in a tone like he meant it strictly rhetorically, although Keith wouldn't have been able to answer the question with any degree of assurance. "You two hang on."
He ducked down the stairs. In the quiet after he left, Keith gave Marion a dubious look.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked, when the silence in front of her immobile face grew a little too oppressive. "You can say no. I've never done this before and it's… fine if you've had enough of people experimenting on you. I don't know if I might do any kind of damage in there."
Her eyes flicked over his face. "It's fine," she said. "I'd say that possibly all the damage has already been done. Knowing that I didn't just 'begin' a short while ago, but not knowing who I am… it's unendurable."
Keith could understand that. The thought of the same for himself—that he might, say, be attacked by this ghost, that he might somehow be changed so he didn't remember why he'd been attacked, who Lucas was, why people like Hiraeth were fighting for him…
It's not worth thinking about.
"I'll do my best for you," he said earnestly. "I'll do everything as carefully as I can, just try to pull up the memories, not… dig around at all or do anything that might leave mental… scars or holes or whatever. I just, since I haven't done it before…"
"I understand the risk," she said. "I'm allowing a complete amateur to dig around in my mind."
"H-hypothetically," he stammered. "I mean, it’s entirely possible that I won't even be able to do it."
Her lips parted slightly, and her voice was at least a little warm. "I know. Just do your best. And don't feel too guilty if something goes wrong."
"That isn't really helping," he said weakly. He thought she might be trying to smile at him.
Hiraeth reappeared then, coming up the stairs with a large quartz sphere held in his hands. "Here we go," he said. "This is supposed to be a focus stone for magic."
Keith wrinkled his nose a little. "This isn't magic… That's kind of new-agey, don't you think?"
"What's wrong with that? Some of them steal too much from people who deserve the credit, but even so, it's not always so far off the mark." Hiraeth held out the stone to Keith, who instinctively reached out to take it before it dropped, since it looked like Hiraeth was going to let go one way or another. "Anyway, you know as well as I do that objects can hold energy, or you wouldn't get memories off them."
The gem was palm-sized, largely clear but with milky cracks throughout. It was heavier than
he expected; even though he knew it wasn't glass, he expected the weight of glass. It was warm to the touch from Hiraeth's body heat.
"A focus stone," Keith said again, and tried to accept the thought. It wasn't so long ago that he'd have been dubious about psychic powers and an Otherworld occupied by weird monsters hiding among humans, either. "Do I have to do anything to make it work?"
"I'm not sure," Hiraeth said cheerfully. "I just know that quartz is supposed to focus energies well. Sorry I didn't think of it sooner."
It wasn't as if it would have made a difference back in the house either way. Keith shrugged one shoulder.
"I'll just hold onto it while I try, then," he said. He met Hiraeth's eyes. "Listen, can you give me advice? You're the first Other I met. I don't know much about you, so I don't know what sort of mental… situation I'd even be exploring. To be entirely honest, I've avoided Others entirely. I don't know anything about them, and you're the first person to explain them to me at all."
Hiraeth let his breath out through his teeth slowly, eyes widening as if he finally realized how implausible it was that Keith would be successful. "Metaphor," he said finally. "I'm sure the human mind is much the same, but we're very… defined by symbols. I mean, look at me. What am I?"
"A… stag?" Keith asked hesitantly, suddenly feeling stupid even as he said it. "I don't know—"
"As much stag as I am anything else," Hiraeth agreed. "But what is a stag? I don't mean for you to tell me about the biology of deer. Give me the symbols."
Keith chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Um… symbols. Noble. Forest-based? Sexual, I mean, like 'stag parties'. A prey animal, so vulnerable. Flighty? But willing to fight." Hiraeth was nodding along, more like he thought they were all interesting options than that he believed they were all correct. "You're… pale. Not a normal deer color. Silver, so—not, uh, womanhood, but femininity? Moonlight. Mystery. You smell of wet leaves, like late autumn, or… actually, I guess silver is also water…"
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