Ask the runes —
and ask the stars —
was this a lost cause from the start?
was there ever a chance to win?
was there ever a risk of failure
less than of starting again?
I ask the runes–
I count the cost–
is there regaining what was lost?
was it ever growing there?
did the leaves ever spring green
upon the branches in the air?
or was it always just a castle
carved of shadows cast in air
a dream of smoke and miraged mirrors
a hope of a future where you’d care
and so I ask the crystal ball
and the tea leaves and the glass
I ask the fire and the cinders
for permission to give up at last.
Category: writing
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TW: suicide
When she died (cause marked unknown) they flayed the flesh from her white bones and peeled the contours of her face with careful touch and subtle grace - they (the undertakers three) hung it out and steamed it clean the sagging wrinkles ironed out, new scripture stitched into her mouth. “We could have saved her!” preach the choir and lift their arms wider and higher up to the mask made of her smile, the candles lit within her eyes - They point at sinners, freaks and saints Tear at their clothes without restraint Soliloquize rebukes on why This golden martyr had to die. Her grave becomes a pilgrim’s town And oh, they flock from miles around With riches that you ne’er did see And oaths of cherished memory. Above it all, the embalmed face Decapitated, or lying in wait Or gazing in kindness – who can say? Not the dead; we’re gone and gone away. And in the gutters and the alleys In the cities and the valleys In the slums and in the streets In the sickbeds wrapped in sheets - In the brothels and the workhouse In the churches and the madhouse In the morgues though not yet dead Soon to follow in her stead – Not yet nameless, not yet breathless Not yet voiceless, not yet bloodless Still in reach, and so close by Look down, and look us in the eye Faces not bolted to blocks of wood Grips unsteady but still good But you won’t help the living – see – there’s that chance that we might disagree. so you walk by, with tribute in your hands to lull the guilt of your mourning band and step on the bones of forgotten ghosts - We were alive three days ago.
The site KiwiFarms has been linked to at least four suicides; broadening that to groups associated with online harassment such as anti-shippers, TERFs, transphobes and other groups empowered by KF’s tactics, the number increases massively. Suicide is the leading cause of death for too many of us – marginalized, neurodivergent, queer, trans, intersex, traumatized, Black, people of color, indigenous, poor. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of hearing about preventable deaths and having to decide where to put all of this anger.
So put your money where your mouth is. Stop blaming those of us who try to kill ourselves for being weak, or fragile, or mentally ill, and understand that you can cause this. You can prevent this. Our deaths are not inevitable. They are not unchangeable. They are not manipulation tactics, or signs of bad moral character. They are cries for help. So help.
Shut down KiwiFarms. And when we’re done, shut down everyone in your life who thinks suicide or bullying or harassment is a joke. Shut down the part of yourself that wants to minimize it, to feel “normal”. Let yourself feel it. And be angry.
I wrote this poem a while ago, and I’ve been trying to submit it; but I think it’s better this way.
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This is an in-character interview with Avery Lavolier from Ghosts in Quicksilver, taking place sometime between Book 2 and Book 3! Preorder Book 2 in paperback over here; wait for the free ebook release on July 15th; or catch up over here.
Lights, camera, action; Avery Lavolier appears on the set holding a Bridgehead cup and looking less surprised than they really should be.
DUNSTAN: Could you look a little more shocked? Awed, perhaps?
LAVOLIER: You gave me a heads up.
DUNSTAN: It was a cryptic note!
LAVOLIER: It seemed perfectly clear to me.
DUNSTAN: It said you’d be summoned to a mysterious place outside of your world at midnight! Signed in blood!
LAVOLIER: First off, I know blood when I see it. You can’t pass off red ink as blood just because you think it looks cool. Second of all, you’re aware I’m friends with Dionysus, right? (makes a face) Maybe friends is a strong word. It takes a lot to throw me off.
I scowl and sit down in the director’s chair. Well, fine. I’ll take it.
DUNSTAN: Fine, fine. But you’ll be extremely shocked to know that-
LAVOLIER: -You’re the writer of the book I’m in?
DUNSTAN: Stop doing that!
LAVOLIER: You’re the one who gave me mind-reading powers.
DUNSTAN: I’m going to make a bird poop on your head in Book Three. Anyway. To business. I’m interviewing you in the lead-up of the release of Book Two: Sulfur. Would you like to tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
LAVOLIER: Not particularly.
DUNSTAN: I think you may be missing the spirit of this.
LAVOLIER: I don’t like open-ended questions! Can’t you ask me something more specific? Something like Buzzfeed. Five top albums. Favourite movie from the 1970s. Fuck, marry, kill of deceased poets.
DUNSTAN: Those are overly specific.
LAVOLIER: Yes, but I can answer them. And technically that is telling you something about me.
DUNSTAN: Okay, fine, go ahead and answer the questions you’ve gone ahead and provided for yourself.
LAVOLIER: Gil Scott-Heron’s Pieces of a Man, 1971, Red Sparowes’s At The Soundless Dawn, 2005, The Cure’s Disintegration, 1989, The Chameleons’ Strange Times, 1986, Hozier’s self-titled, 2014.
DUNSTAN: …You have those on hand?
LAVOLIER: It’s a good conversation piece. Movie is a tie between Jesus Christ Superstar and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. And while technically it’s more ‘smooch’ than ‘fuck’, Sylvia Plath, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg. Or maybe kill Amiri Baraka. Definitely want to kiss Sylvia, though-
DUNSTAN: How much thought do you put into this?
LAVOLIER: You realize that I spend a lot of time with Will.
DUNSTAN: …Oh, god. Right. What’s her answer to that last one?
LAVOLIER: I think it changes regularly, but she’s expressed a lot of interest in screwing Jim Morrison, if that’s any indicator.
DUNSTAN: Forget I asked.
LAVOLIER: No. Your face is too precious.
DUNSTAN: (clears throat) So, how did you get involved with the elemental community in Ottawa? You mentioned Dionysus.
LAVOLIER: They played a part, sure. But really, it was, uh – (shifts) I started going to queer events more? The stuff with Dionysus shook me out of the routine, and I ran into Luka. He’s Isaiah and Robin’s boyfriend, so I started hanging out with them, and I was around when they adopted their kid.
DUNSTAN: Who is also an elemental.
LAVOLIER: (laughs) Yep. An Air elemental, which is fun to deal with when he’s acting up. And puts a whole new spin on ‘grounding’ someone. Cassandra and Will showed up in there, too. Around the same time, actually, I think? Stuff just kind of kept happening.
DUNSTAN: You took on a bit of a leadership role.
LAVOLIER: Oh, no, I don’t like that. I’m not a leader. No, you have people who – run different areas of Ottawa. Some are more, er, gang-minded about it than others. Lila’s a bit too mafia for my tastes. Cassandra’s very idealistic. Me, I’m Switzerland. I help where I can and I stay out of the political squabbles. It helps defuse the worst of the tensions, you know? We all want the same thing. Er, usually. Stay off the radar of the normies, stay out of trouble, don’t blow anything up.
DUNSTAN: What about you? What do you want?
LAVOLIER: Pretty much that. I like helping people. And I record what I can. That’s part of the problem with elemental history. All marginalized history, really – nobody really, uh, thinks it’s worth recording, or that it’s real, so our records are patchy. I know what I can do with my powers, but Will’s work in an entirely different way. Way stronger, too. And merde, it’s a little scary, not knowing. So I write things down. I’m happy with that.
DUNSTAN: That’s nice. I like that. I hope other people appreciate it.
LAVOLIER: Some do! Some get worried about it falling into the wrong hands, which I can understand. I’m Bajan on my dad’s side, and my grandma talked about obeah sometimes. But she was always too scared to write it down. Nervous about the wrong people doing bad with it, or backlash against my dad for her being a “witch”. Problem is, here I am now, and I’d love to know more, but none of it’s written. It’s all gone with her.
DUNSTAN: Double-edged sword.
LAVOLIER: Exactly.
DUNSTAN: You mentioned queer community and events. What’s the crossover like?
LAVOLIER: Crossover between queer community and the elemental community? Er, a bit strange, really. You get elemental powers from trauma, right? But it’s not reliable. It’s sort of like playing the lottery. Some people go through horrible traumatic shit and never get powers. Some people have their dog die and end up with world-breaking powers. Not that dogs dying can’t be traumatic. That’s not what I mean. It’s just that trauma is a bit of a – it’s an unreliable measure. So it overlaps, it’s a Venn diagram, but it’s not a circle. It’s a little more intertwined in Ottawa, because Ottawa’s… I shouldn’t say small. Ottawa’s not actually small. It’s a city masquerading as a small town. But everybody kind of knows everybody when it comes to the subcultures, so there’s more connections here.
DUNSTAN: As opposed to?
LAVOLIER: Toronto, for example, really. Toronto’s huge, so the elemental “community” or communities can essentially operate completely outside of the queer communities, even though it shares members. And not everybody who’s an elemental is part of the community, and not everybody who’s queer is part of the queer community, and so on so forth. Probably the biggest crossover point is actually in stuff like mutual aid, sex worker groups, stuff like that. Shelters. That’s a big one.
DUNSTAN: Shelters?
LAVOLIER: God, that one’s actually depressing. More than usual, anyway. Uh, so obviously, long term effects of trauma, a decent chunk of elementals end up unhoused or transient, drug users, stuff like that. And you get into this cycle in particular of people destabilizing, using stuff like drugs to get a bit of false stability with their powers, but it’s not – it’s skin-deep, basically. It’s a stop-gap. It works sometimes, but not if all the stuff that got things out of control is still affecting you. And if you try to use shelters, that gets worse, depending on your powers. Because a lot of unstable effects affect other people.
DUNSTAN: Oh. Christ.
LAVOLIER: Usually it’s not too bad. But by the time you hear about things like localized earthquakes or weird high-pressure phenomena at shelters and mental health wards, anybody who knows what’s up will get over there as fast as possible. Especially Salt elementals, but obviously that’s a bit of a no go at the moment.
DUNSTAN: There’s other options, though, right?
LAVOLIER: For core elementals, yeah. Uh, Water elementals can get Fire elementals under control, Fire calms Earth, Earth calms Air, Air calms Water. (beat) I think. One sec. Yeah, that’s right. It’s a circle, but I always mess up part of it. I’m not core, so I don’t have to think about it that often.
DUNSTAN: Right. And for celestials it’s a little more complicated.
LAVOLIER: I don’t remember who came up with the term celestials, but it sounds so needlessly pretentious.
DUNSTAN: What’s the difference between the two, anyway?
LAVOLIER: Core elements are more centered on the physical world. All of them are things that are here, on this plane, things we can touch and see and feel. Celestial elements are Salt, Sulfur and Mercury, and they’re tied instead to the psyche. I have the full paradigm in my notes somewhere, but – Paracelsus, that’s right – it’s related to Paracelsus. But yes, with us, when Sulfur and Mercury spin out of control, only Salt elementals can ‘naturally’ stabilize us, unless we calm down on our own. Which everybody can do, but not if we’re getting constantly triggered. Salts don’t have any options, but it’s also really, really hard to destabilize Salts.
DUNSTAN: So what do you do when there’s no Salts around?
LAVOLIER: Remove the issue, or get away from the problem, mostly. Sometimes that’s not possible, but most of the time, there’s something you can do. With permission from Will, she’s got a really good example – she and Cass can’t spend too much time together because it’s really easy for one or both of them to destabilize. It’s a protective thing, and not anybody’s fault, but ultimately, it’s safer to just keep relative distance from each other. You can’t rely on a Salt or Earth elemental always being around, so knowing what triggers you is really important.
DUNSTAN: Pretty much the same as PTSD.
LAVOLIER: Yeah, honestly. PTSD’s sort of a prerequisite to being an elemental, even if some of us don’t present with the more normal symptoms or wouldn’t be diagnosed with it. With any mental illness, managing symptoms is a tightrope balance as it is. We just have different kinds of harm to consider.
DUNSTAN: I like that you said ‘different kinds of harm’ instead of actual or real harm.
LAVOLIER: I thought about it. But I’ve hurt people in plenty of ways without my powers ever getting involved, and really, Sulfur’s one of the more dangerous ones without ever leaving a single mark on someone. So that wouldn’t be accurate.
DUNSTAN: There’s a lot of talk about mental illness being dangerous or how that’s a stereotype. How does that translate for you personally, when it comes to the elemental stuff?
LAVOLIER: (blows out their cheeks) …Whew. Uh, that gets even deeper than this interview so far. I don’t mind, by the way, before you get all self-conscious.
DUNSTAN: You peeked.
LAVOLIER: Sorry. (pauses and thinks it through) I think we get really… worried and tangled up about mental illness being dangerous and danger being bad and something to be eradicated, and how the only ‘good’ way to represent and rehabilitate how mental illness is seen is to defang it. And I don’t agree with that. Why is it we can have movies where Iron Man and Thor destroy entire buildings and Chris Evans derails trains to make social statements – I love that movie, by the way – and we’ll glorify kid-murderer cops, but the moment marginalized people are dangerous, it’s something to fear? Yeah, mentally ill people are dangerous sometimes. Queer people can be dangerous. Black folks can be dangerous. I’m dangerous. That doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to be seen as a person. If it takes me being a bit unpredictable or lashing out for you to dehumanize me or think I’m not worthy of living, then you were always going to, no matter how well-spoken or well-dressed or fascinating I am otherwise. And let’s not get away from the fact that elementals get these powers because somebody hurt us, usually. No, mental illness can be scary. It sucks the worst for the person in it.
DUNSTAN: How do you put this into practice?
LAVOLIER: (pauses) You’re asking about Kiera. (sighs) Yeah, a lot of this is excellent on paper. I live by it. I care about it. I’ll defend the people I love with it. But dangerous also means… dangerous to us, too. (Avery is quiet for a few moments) I still stand by all of it. Every single word. I’m a pacifist. I’m a prison abolitionist. But yeah. Yeah, it’s a little harder to, when it’s your friends getting hurt. That’s the hard part, isn’t it? Ideals are easy when they’re protecting you. Not so much when they apply to somebody you don’t like.
DUNSTAN: It might be a sign that they need to be more flexible.
LAVOLIER: Oh, maybe. But I’m not comfortable with supporting mentally ill folks who are dangerous and fit “the profile”, then turning around and kicking another out of the fold for being dangerous and fitting the profile. I’m just also not comfortable with spending more energy on a murderer than the people whose lives she’s ruined.
DUNSTAN: So where does that leave you?
Avery’s quiet for a long time. They stare into their drink, chewing their lip. They’re tired. They’re stressed.
LAVOLIER: Switzerland.
Want to catch up on the lore of Alkimia Fables? Check out the lore bible over here for a quick start.
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TW: anti-Arab racism, bullying, violence, mental illness, dissociation, unreality, eye horror (not trauma to eyes)
I don’t remember the first fight I was in. Part of that’s because it’s hard to tell the difference between a fight and being pushed around; bullying versus confrontation. But I remember one in particular, because it was one of the last ghosts I remember seeing for a long time.
The white boy who’d tripped me was a big guy, maybe fourth, fifth grade. I’d seen him around, mostly lurking in front of the portables or sneaking out the back wire gate of the school to smoke pot with the seventh and eighth graders during recess. I wasn’t sure what his problem with me was, but it was probably the same as everybody else’s. I hadn’t said hello or goodbye the right way, or at the right time, or I’d looked at him weirdly, or he didn’t like my name, or my clothes, or the way I talked. Maybe he thought I was from Iraq (Eye-Rack, was how he said it. I wasn’t sure he was wrong, but it didn’t sound right either.) The point was, he didn’t like me.
I struggled onto my hands and feet, swallowing the taste of blood in my mouth. I’d bitten my tongue. Then I looked back at him—past the sneer on his pale, slightly frost-reddened face, to the man standing behind him. He was as pearly gray as all the rest of the ghosts, but he was Black, or maybe just a mess of mixed blood like me.
When he noticed my eyes on him, his curious look turned into appraisal.
“Well, kid,” he said with a snort. “You gonna let him get away with it?”
I ignored him, and stood up, trying to avoid the older boy’s eyes. Sometimes if I just didn’t say anything that worked—
The punch took me by surprise and knocked me right back onto the ice, feet slipping out from under me. I was just glad I hadn’t hit my head. Next thing I knew, the ghost was squatting down next to me. He had calluses on his knuckles and fingernails cut down to the quick, deep lines cutting through his pink palms.
“I know, I know. I should just walk away,” I mumbled, mostly to myself as I spat salt and dirty snow out of my mouth. I was just glad Jo wasn’t here.
“Nah. Fuck that.”
I glanced up at him, surprised. Adults usually pretended not to swear around me. He smirked at me, stubbled cheeks elastic with age. “You’re gon’ get it no matter what. Learned that the hard way. Ain’t nothing gonna stop a prick like that from throwin’ his weight around. Kid like you minding your own business? He don’t give a shit. And the teachers standin’ around? They’ll blame you whether you did anything or not.”
I liked his voice. He was from somewhere else, somewhere south of here—although everywhere was south of Ottawa, really, everywhere that mattered.
“So what do I do?”
“If he’s gonna see you as a threat,” he said, jabbing a nicotine-stained finger into my chest that slid right through, “rise to the challenge. And make him regret it.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I reached forward in the snow, and my fingers closed around a chunk of ice on the ground, exposed in the March thaw. I wasn’t sure what to do—
The older boy’s boot hit my stomach, and I tried not to throw up. I hadn’t even done anything to him. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t—
I got up, chunk of ice in my hand. They’ll blame you whether you did anything or not.
And I made him regret it.
——
I stayed back, standing on the porch and glancing hesitantly between Sunvay and Kiera. I should have left. I was brash, sure—but I wasn’t brash enough to get between anybody and a baseball bat. Certainly not between a candidate for worst person in the world and her stalking victim. No point in sugar-coating it. But… but I did want to help, and I was scared for Jaylie, because Kiera was much more powerful than her. And somehow, for some reason, I was scared for Kiera, too. It was ridiculous. She was the monster here. I knew that – we were all on the same page – but I still –
None of this should have to happen. Childish, maybe. It was what I had to offer. And the same part of me that believed that kept trying to brush this off, too, as drama or bickering or the kinds of fights people had over break-ups and snubs and perceived insult.
And the much smarter part of me knew that Jaylie was going to be in a whole load of trouble if the cops showed up. Again. For somebody who held her breath while passing police stations, I was getting involved in an awful lot of crime scenes. Maybe I should reconsider my career choices.
Calm down. You can get involved if it gets out of control. The smartest thing I could do was be here. Somebody just being here would keep things from spiraling… I hoped. It hadn’t worked at McStab’s, but who knew?
Kiera looked at Sunvay with – not quite surprise, but close – and then put her hand on her hip with a scoff. “Banshee? Is that really what you think I am?” She reached casually into the air next to her, showing off her trick again and pulling her sword from the air like it’d been tucked between the folds. She spun it in her hand, hilt tumbling over her knuckles. She looked so relaxed that I could almost pretend that the ground below wasn’t flickering between normal, salt-speckled asphalt and some sort of bone-white dust.
It was little things that were wrong; cracks in the porch wood that disappeared if I looked straight at them, TV static between the gathering clouds, rot appearing and then retreating on the scattered tree trunks. Other people’s instability—at least the little bit I’d seen—didn’t seem to have as much middle ground as hers. Maybe it was just that she’d been like this for so long that it’d become her normal.
“It was that or hag.” Sunvay shot back. His eyes were amber in the real world, but they flashed green back at Kiera for a second.
She brushed it off, but the cracks got a little deeper. “I’d expect humans to be so unimaginative—but you? Really?”
He twitched at that, and I frowned. I supposed Jaylie’s alters were something other than human depending on the perspective, but that didn’t seem right. For a moment I thought he was going to respond—but instead, he raised his hand, beckoning at Kiera.
“Come on. You’ve been trying to kill us for months now. You sca—”
Kiera’s sword cut an arc of gold through the air, and I held my breath, for a moment thinking it would hit Sunvay—but he leant backwards just enough for the saber to hiss past him. He blocked the second swing with the bat, and with each strike he stepped backwards, staying on the defensive. On a particularly hard swing, he dropped the bat, Kiera’s sword lodged into the wood. Kiera jolted forward at the sudden weight, and Sunvay slipped down into a crouch, suddenly smaller and lighter, and kicked her feet out from under her.
It wasn’t Sunvay anymore. I didn’t know who this was, but their hair was a loose puff of ash-gray curls all around them, pale scars decorating their bared arms like lightning scars. Kiera vanished into a streak of silver and reappeared standing a moment later like nothing had happened, and the new person just snickered in a hoarse voice.
“Lovely,” Kiera deadpanned. “I’m fighting all your little personas.”
Not-Jaylie’s face dropped into a scowl—then they slammed an open hand into Kiera’s chin, foot swinging up into a kick. Not street fighting. Jaylie had clearly learned somewhere.
Kiera just barely caught the kick, wavering slightly at the impact. “Aw, cute. I’m stronger than that, honey.” Her face split into a grin too wide for her mouth, shark-teeth on full display. Then she shoved the foot down, slamming her forehead into Not-Jaylie’s. I winced just watching it, and blood ran down from the ash-haired scalp.
I should do something.
Do what? I was in exactly the same position as before. I could fight, sure. Not like this. I could stab people, and punch people. And I could talk to dead people. That was it. Jaylie had actually learned how to fight somewhere; I hadn’t. My big skill was that I was tenacious and stupid. Kiera would eat me alive.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Kiera taunted as Not-Jaylie stumbled to their knees, clearly dizzy. She tossed the baseball bat over to them, and it clanked against the asphalt. “Come on. Show me what you’ve got, wechselbalg.”
Wechselbalg. What was she trying to prove? Why Jaylie? Jaylie hadn’t done anything to her. This was just cruel.
Kiera raised her sword over Not-Jaylie—but then Jaylie raised her head. “Stop.”
Kiera’s arm stopped midair, her face a sneer of rage.
“You forgot, didn’t you?” Jaylie said in a low, mocking tone. The ash-hued hair was gone, braids falling down her back with a rattle of beads. But Kiera didn’t stop for long—the Sulfur trick had slowed her down, but that was all. She shifted with another streak of silver—in the low light, all I could see was the silhouette until she prowled into the intersecting rings of lamplight.
“Very clever.” She leant down to pick up her bat, and dark red bloomed across her hair. Reynare straightened up, pointing the bat at Kiera. “Not clever enough. You know we can see you.”
See her? But—
Oh.
Jaylie was a Sulfur, and a Mercury. I didn’t know how exactly having two at once worked, but Kiera hissed at Reynare with a fury that gave away exactly what she meant. (Jaylie’s the only one you’ve met with two, some part of me insisted. She’s the only one. What are you missing?) She leapt, but Reynare dodged the telegraphed jump easily. Except halfway through the leap, Kiera shifted back into herself, and her fingers grabbed Reynare’s hair, yanking her backwards and throwing her down to the ground.
“Get out of my head,” Kiera snarled.
“Love to. Stop thinking about us.” Reynare tore her hair out of Kiera’s grip, strands melting like they were made of ash. She put more distance between her and Kiera. “You can’t, can you? It’s constant, Every time we’re near you. You can’t stop thinking about us, and what we are.”
“Get out.”
“We can’t stop. Any more than you can, apparently.”
“Then shape the fuck up. Show me what you’re actually capable of.” Kiera feinted with the sword, then slashed at Reynare’s cheek, fingers turning to silver-tipped claws midway through the swing. And a second later, I realized she’d used actual silver, because there was smoke hissing up from her fingers where the nails hit her skin, and she nearly bit through her lip until she shifted it away. Was that possible? And good god, why would she hurt herself like that, unless—
Oh. Oh, god.
Reynare was crouched over, one hand on the ground. I’d missed it at first. Kiera had actually hit her. Blood dripped down her cheek, but not as much as there should have been – because the three claw-marks across her face were still smoldering, hissing smoke into the lamplit air along with the smell of burning flesh. Her face turned back into Jaylie’s, but the cuts remained. Smoking, just like Kiera’s hand. Faerie flesh.
Jaylie wasn’t human.
Too little, too late, a bunch of pieces fell together.
“You want to know what I’m capable of? That’s what you want?” she almost crooned, looking back at Kiera with eyes burning quicksilver-bright, voice so sweet that the fury behind it almost seemed like a mirage if you weren’t paying attention.
It gets complicated with plurals, Gurjas had been trying to say, but then I’d asked if she had two powers because she was a system-
Somewhat the other way around. Reynare.
Nobody had told me about people who had more than one element, because humans didn’t.
I glanced up at the swiftly-darkening sky. The moon had disappeared.
Kiera hadn’t noticed the sky yet. She was too busy grinning manically, taking pride in some sort of perceived victory. “If this is all, then that means I win. I win, I knew I w—”
“You stupid, jealous bitch.”
Isaiah. Stories about faeries stealing children, switching them with their own. I hadn’t thought to ask him how the faerie children felt about it. I hadn’t thought to ask him if they ever got to go home.
Kiera lashed out at Jaylie again—and the bat hit her squarely in the ribs. She collapsed to the ground, and I found myself running off the porch, onto the asphalt, and then I stopped, because I was not equipped for this, for any of this.
“You think you’re the first person to hate me?” Jaylie didn’t even sound angry. She sounded… resigned. There was fury there, yes, but it was so tangled up with exhausted sadness that it was all the more terrifying. Fury was alive, fury was passionate. This was different. “You think you’re the first person to try banish me with silver and iron? Or even just—know that I didn’t belong and use other tricks on me, try get back the child they deserved?”
The moon was back. The moon was—
A black spot rolled around it, down to focus on Kiera, and I stuffed my knuckles in my mouth, trying not to scream. The moon was not back. The silvery thing hanging in the sky wasn’t a moon. It was an eye. And as I watched, more of them were opening across the blue-black sky that was too dark for sunset, all focusing on Kiera.
“I didn’t know,” Jaylie spat, her voice almost breaking. “ That’s what the others were locking up, away from me—and I’d wondered, sure, but not knowing, not remembering, kept me sane. Don’t you understand? You did this to me. You did this.”
Jaylie hadn’t just been afraid of Kiera. She hadn’t just been hiding from Kiera.
The sky was moving. Why was it moving? It wasn’t a sky, skies didn’t lurch like that, or rise upwards. It was a body—a massive, horrifying, lithe body lifting itself up and exposing the orange-streaked atmosphere behind it. There was no head, just a ragged stump that could have been a neck.
It was the Headless. It was the Headless, the god that had thrown me out of the Medium the first time, and it was here. How was it here?
Calm down. I had to calm down. Jaylie was a Mercury, too, I was probably hallucinating—
But Kiera was staring at the Headless, too. She was seeing the same thing. Mercury hallucinations weren’t shared, right? They weren’t. Oh, god. What did I do? Whatever was happening, Jaylie was doing it.
I willed my feet to move. They wouldn’t obey me—so I squeezed my eyes shut and managed to get them moving the first few steps before I opened my eyes again. Jaylie. I had to get to Jaylie.
I grabbed her shoulders, turning her away from Kiera. Her silver eyes were frightening in the dark, shapeshifter trick or not. “Jaylie, you gotta stop.”
“Absolutely not. She ruined my life.”
“I—I know. But if she and I can both see… that, so can everybody else.”
“It’s just a mirage, it’s not real.”
“It looks pretty fucking real to me!”
“I don’t care!” Her voice did rise this time. “I don’t care! If it was that nobody helped me that’d be one thing! I’m used to that! But everybody who helped me died for it! I’m not okay with that and I shouldn’t have to be okay with that, and you are not going to stop me from doing the world a fucking favour!”
I felt like I was being stabbed. Mostly because—she was right. She was right, and I didn’t know how to respond. Nobody was backing me up on this. Not even Will, who had the most reason to. It was time to give it up.
Kiera was getting to her feet. I just noticed it out of the corner of my eye, and then I saw her sword in her hand—
This was my fault for letting it get this far. My fault. My fault. My fault.
So I did the only thing I was good at.
I watched as the sword arced towards us, and pushed Jaylie out of the way.
——
“This wouldn’t be such a problem,” came the familiar voice, “if you weren’t such a self-sacrificing idiot.”
I tried to open my eyes, winced, and rubbed at them.
“If it helps, by the way,” Jo sighed, “you aren’t dead.”
I squinted against the light. I wasn’t cold, even though it was November. There wasn’t any snow on the ground.
“…Well. I suppose that’s good news,” I mumbled. “You got anything else for me?”
“Yeah. I have no idea how to get you home.”
Ah.
My eyes cleared enough to get a proper look at the world around me. I was lying on wild grass, dotted with flowers; a few feet from me, dark trees surged up into a sky that didn’t look right. It took me a moment to realize why. No plane trails. No phone lines. No satellites.
“…I don’t suppose tapping my heels will work,” I said weakly. I supposed this is what I got for fucking with fairytales.
THE END
FOR NOW
BOOK THREE STARTS 2022Download Book 2 as an ebook here!
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This is almost unheard of from me, but I wrote this as a 2020 Christmas Eve short pretty much on a whim. This takes place (sort of) in the Alkimia Fables canon, and features characters from Ghosts in Quicksilver, just after the projected end of the book. It’s not entirely canon, but close enough.
TW: alcohol use (not alcoholism, but not entirely healthy easier), past child death, past drug use, past homelessness, queer community issues discussed in abstract incl. in-community deaths. Surprisingly, it is less dark than this would make it sound, although it is referencing VERY dark content within GIQ itself.
It was Christmas Eve, and Willow Moray – as had become a deeply unfortunate and not altogether unexpected custom – was drunk off her ass.
To be fair, there were worse drunks out there. She’d lived with one, for starters; and that was before you counted the people who were sweet and just really couldn’t hold their liquor. But she’d timed it wrong, and she stared at the darkening sky above her, bad mood worsening as she quickly went from “fun happy tipsy drunk” to – well, the other part.
“Why am I not surprised?” came the comment from behind her.
Will flopped backwards onto the packed snow of the field. “Averyyyy. My hero,” she drawled.
“You’re being sarcastic, but you wear it so well.” Avery walked up to Willow, avoiding the sprawl of her long hair with their snowboots and clearly trying not to snicker. “Isn’t it a little cold?” they asked. They were bundled up against the cold. Not massively; late December hadn’t brought the worst cold yet, but they had a mid-calf jacket on, and a tuque pulled over their locs.
“For what, getting drunk on the curb like a hobo, or the outfit?” Will wriggled a bit on the snow. It was bizarrely comfortable, once you got past the cold. She wasn’t technically on the curb, but it was the principle of the thing.
Avery shook their head, clearly entertained. One of the nice things about being a Sulfur, Will thought, was that she could tell when she was in for a lecture and when her sense of humour was actually working for her. Even if the wry little grin on Avery’s face hadn’t given it away, a smile sneaking onto their face despite themselves, the echoes of their mood behind them were surprisingly warm. “I, personally, wouldn’t be wearing a tank top in below-zero, but you don’t look like you’re dying of frostbite. And at least you have something with you,” they added, although they gave Will’s hoodie a somewhat cautious glance.
“Relax. Frostbite is so last year. Besides, there are so many better ways.”
Avery raised an eyebrow. “…I feel like you take advantage of the fact that I can tell you’re joking.”
“Shamelessly.”
The older person gave up the fight with themself and snickered. They eased themself down into the snow, pulling a face. “Merde. My jeans aren’t going to be happy with me.”
Will gave Avery a long look. She wasn’t prying, even if she’d wanted to. Other Sulfurs were sometimes the best company she could ask for; she could teach other people how to shield their thoughts to some degree, but other Sulfurs were the people best at keeping her out. Intention got through, more or less, but that just eased some of the usual communication barriers and threw up others. But taking away the headache of knowing, or thinking she knew, or trying to predict, what the other person was thinking – it helped.
“I thought you’d be picking up exhausted carolers and overindulging partiers by now,” Will said quietly. “Please don’t tell me you’re skippin’ work on my account.”
“I set my own hours. And I decided I needed a Christmas off.”
“Even though it’s one of your most profitable nights?” Will eased herself up on her elbows, shook some snow out of her hair, and took another sip of the bottle she had in her paper bag. It wasn’t nearly as trashy as she’d managed to make it look; it was one of those strawberry-wine coolers, with probably just as much sugar as ethanol in it.
“By the time I clean the upholstery, it definitely isn’t,” Avery teased, but then a more somber look settled onto their face. Will knew that look. It meant Avery wasn’t having a great night either. Not a bad night – a bad night for Avery meant nobody was going to see hide nor hair of them. It was something Will almost, but didn’t quite understand. No, it was just one of those nights. Much like with her. Not a good night, not an average night – just kind of vaguely, but mundanely gross.
“C’mon. What’s on your mind?” When Avery looked hesitant, Will narrowed her eyes. “You have literally, and I mean literally, hauled me out of the gutter during an OD. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but you can tell me anything.”
Avery stuck their legs out, still thinking. “I’m just sad, I think.”
… Fair enough. Although, to be honest, Will was so used to terrible things that the concept of “just sad” was a little weird. Will nearly took another sip of wine, then thought about their night so far, sighed internally, and put the cap back on. Fool me once… “Do you know why?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I just think too much.”
“I mean, this last year has been a shitshow. We lost a lot of people.”
Avery’s lips quirked. “I think that’s kind of what’s on my mind. Not – really the losing, exactly? I mean, sort of that. I don’t know who wouldn’t be bothered by that. But the… ‘we’, I guess.”
Will nodded, kind of following – not completely, but a bit. It was weird. She didn’t think much about the Great Big Idea of community a lot on her own. But everybody around her seemed to – which had everything to do, she grumbled, with the fact that she kept attracting big thinkers. Jamal and Avery and Cassandra. Stupid big-picture thinkers. And now she was thinking about it more. “Alright, so what’s your big take?”
“Not really a big take. I just miss my family.”
Ah. That was simpler than she’d expected. “Your dad’s in Montreal, right? Not so far.”
Avery shrugged. “Not that far. And he means well. But he doesn’t get it, he never will, and I’m okay with that, but my family here is a mess too.”
“Present company included, I imagine.”
“I mean, you have an apartment, you have actual work, and you’re seeing a therapist in the new year-“
“Don’t remind me,” Will groaned, nearly flinging herself back onto the snow. “You had to remind me.”
“-You’re doing better than a lot of people.”
“That sounds fake, but okay.”
Avery snorted. “The fact that you insist on drinking wine from a brown bag in the middle of a field even though you’re not homeless anymore is more of a quirk than anything.”
“I crave my days of freedom.”
“Bullshit,” Avery deadpanned back. They did look a little better already, though.
Will contemplated her navel, chewing on the inside of her cheek. It mostly sounded like Avery was lonely. The other stuff was true, too, but hell, their community wasn’t going to get fixed overnight. The problem with elementals was that half of them were queer, half of them were crazy, all of them were traumatized, and nobody had written any of the old stuff down for the obvious reasons. Or at least, if they had, it wasn’t anywhere obvious. Avery was chewing at the same bit that they’d been chewing at for a long time, just with more stuff to worry about – they just didn’t have anybody to break them out of the cycle.
Which, Will reflected, was something she could fix. It wasn’t that Avery didn’t have friends. But Avery’s other friends weren’t Sulfurs. They were elementals, sure, but if Avery said they were fine, it was accepted, or at worst prodded at once or twice. There was, regrettably, an upside to Will’s disaster-zone status being public knowledge. Nobody expected her to be an adult.
“C’mon,” Will said after a moment, hoisting herself out of the snow. “It is…” She checked her phone. “Jesus jumping jackerel christ it is five o’ clock. I hate Canada.”
“…Jesus jumping what?”
“I’m trying to swear less. It’s practice for the therapist. Anyway, come on. At least one store is going to be open.”
Avery raised an eyebrow. “What are we doing?”
Will tried to be flippant – then sighed, grimacing. “I am trying to learn how to be a real person and not a walking… thing of knives and sass. And you need company.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“It was, just not a useful one.” Will felt embarrassed now that she had to say it out loud. “…Half of us don’t have anywhere to go for Christmas. Those of us who, you know, bother celebrating it to begin with. And I bet people have thought about doing something for it before, but the thing is, we all suck at planning, and everybody’s too nervous to actually do it. So let’s.”
“Let’s what?”
“Let’s do it. At least for Jamal and Jaylie – and Cass, yeah.” She felt herself wilt a little at the surprised look on Avery’s face. “Oh come on, she lives in a fucking school, who do I look like, Satan?”
Avery eased themself out of the snow. “You know nobody’s going to have any food.”
“Nobody ever has any food. We’ll make it work. Besides, I can –“
Avery shot them an icy glare.
“…It’s Christmas,” Will complained. “What’s a little theft between friends and convenience store clerks?”
“I really hope you paid for that wine.”
“I did,” she grumbled. “I wasn’t going to. And then your voice showed up in my head and made me feel all guilty, you jerk.”
“That’s my girl,” Avery laughed, passing by and ruffling Will’s hair. Will stood there for a moment, scowling after Avery and fixing her hair – and trying to make the flush of pride fade just a little. Maybe Cassie wouldn’t be interested. Maybe Jamal was asleep. Maybe Jaylie was busy with her parents – she actually had a home life, it was just a little patchy at the corners.
But, hell. You never knew until you tried, right? And it was better than drinking wine on her own, trying to make the night pass faster, and missing people who were gone.
Maybe his ghost was still hanging around. Maybe he’d done the smart thing and moved on and left her and Cassie to sort out their own crap. And god knows the “Christmas is for family” thing had been a weapon more than anything comforting, when they’d been a family, when he’d been alive – but he’d loved it anyway. Kids, right?
“Merry Christmas, Alex,” she murmured, feeling just a little stupid as her voice hung in the December air.
Elliott Dunstan 