Clouds hued in the grays and blacks of what Rose was seeing, tinted with flashes of light blue, like Ainsley’s jacket, as if someone had dyed the storm.
“You’re going to remember him forever? He holds a place in your heart?” Peter asked.
“No,” Rose said, annoyed.
Alister, beside her, was fiddling with his jacket, where it had been cut off along with his hand. He pulled his glove off with his teeth and started to work with the fabric.
Rose helped, pulling his sweater down and tying it in a rough knot. After a moment, she pulled off one mitten and pulled it tight over the stump. It was mangled, but not openly bleeding. It took some doing.
“Because here I was, thinking you and stickman didn’t get along,” Peter said, sounding impatient with the conversation.
“The bogeyman’s spirit is possessing her,” Alister said. He reached out, and he clasped Rose’s right “He’s dormant for now, but he may take a more active role soon.”
Ainsley’s head snapped around, giving Rose a second look, suddenly very concerned.
“Oh,” Peter said. He paused for a beat, then said, “That sounds like a terrible idea, but you know, I’m just the uninitiated guy who got introduced to all this a matter of hours ago. If you guys think it’s okay, I can roll with it.”
“No,” Alister said. “It is a terrible idea.”
Peter flashed a smile. “Oh. At least I’m hitting the mark, figuring this stuff out.”
“Yes. You seem oddly comfortable, all things considered,” Alister said. He glanced at Ainsley.
“What?” Ainsley asked.
Alister shook his head.
“Seriously, what? I have no idea what you’re saying,” Ainsley said.
“Can’t help but notice he had his arm around you, as we walked up,” Alister said.
“Did he? I barely paid attention,” Ainsley said. Then, a little defensively, as my cousin glanced at her, she added, “We were cold, sitting here waiting for all of you, and I’m tired, so I don’t see how it’s a big deal.”
It sounded like she was addressing Peter as much as anything. Rose paid particular attention to that. She analyzed it, and I didn’t follow the analysis. I could figure it out myself, without studying it.
Peter took it all in stride, shrugging.
“Okay,” Alister said. “Fine. I’m overreacting, and I’m sorry. We all have reason to be tired.”
Rose turned, surveying the surroundings. “We should leave. I’m not sure I like being so close to all of this.”
“No objection,” Ellie said. “Would have done that an hour ago, but where the hell are we supposed to go?”
“Our place,” Alister said. “We’ve got beds, right Ains?”
“Yeah. Might have to pull out an air mattress, but we’re provisioned.”
Peter glanced at Ainsley. “I thought there was a family rivalry. Are you really okay with dirty Thorburns sleeping with you?”
“Okay,” Alister cut in, his voice firmer. “You did not have to word that like that. You could have asked me instead of her.”
Peter looked offended, “I spent way too long sitting in the cold with her, we hiked all the way from the woods on the fucking other end of town. We’ve talked, so I’m sorry if I feel more comfortable asking her than asking you.”
“I don’t even know what you two are saying,” Ainsley said, exasperated.
Rose shook her head. After all the stress of nearly dying, wrestling with countless others, and dealing with the demon, she was almost relieved at the mild argument here.
A movement behind her made her turn her head.
Her eye fell briefly on Green Eyes, who was laying in snow, one hand on a branch. The thing. She was supposed to be a mermaid, but she was a nightmare. A mockery of a mermaid. Every inch of her was covered in scales with flesh-ripping barbs, and even the angle and posture of her body threatened immediate and horrible degrees of pain.
A bogeyman, Rose estimated, could be bad enough. But one that was pissed off?
Rose’s heart rate picked up a touch as the creature narrowed her eyes. She reached for Conquest-
-And I could see the landscape on my end of things change.
If Rose’s self was a realm unto itself, with me holding some territory and Rose holding the rest, then Rose willingly ceded territory to Conquest.
Changing my perspective, I could see Conquest taking hold, vines with tiny white flowers creeping, shoring up the solid structures, creeping between shattered images, bolstering them.
The storm roiled, but now white petals stirred, multiplying in the darker shadows which might have represented Rose’s fear.
I saw a tendril of Conquest’s reaching, and I moved to head it off, to look and see if my own strength could hold up to the incarnation’s.
Further from ongoing events. Into memories.
It was much as things had been before. Fractured images. On the one side, Rose attended church with her parents. On the other, well, I didn’t have those same memories. My view of church was what I’d seen walking past and looking in, after a given church had closed. The church where the Jacob’s Bell council met. Ominous, dark, and empty.
“You’re in my way,” Conquest said. She didn’t speak in a loud voice, but it carried in the church. “I don’t think you want to be in my way.”
The scene was largely frozen, and it remained fractured. On the one side, the church bright. Mom and dad sitting on either side of a young Rose. Rigid, proper, keeping her in line. The fracture ran down across the benches of the rightmost aisle, and my side of the church was empty, dark, with things moving in the shadows.
Conquest stood at the Altar. The minister, middle aged, all in white, with a pinched mouth and hard stare. Two bouquets of flowers sat on either side of the altar, and both blossomed, white petals falling to make room for the new.
“I’ve been looking for you,” I said.
“Why?”
“Why do you need to occupy this sort of memory?” I countered.
She pointed. I followed her gaze beyond the church windows.
“Peter,” Rose said, with a stern tone. Her connection to Conquest connected, exaggerated, and drew from several events in her personal experience. From the scene that Conquest and I occupied, I saw Rose reach into and draw from the strict and slightly scary minister, our parent’s aura as they sat on either side of her, the pressure and expectation that she sit still and be good.
Peter shook his head, and looked away. Breaking eye contact.
It felt satisfying to Rose, to achieve the effect she’d aimed for, getting Peter to back down with a word.
“That would be why,” Conquest said, her words tearing me away from the scene. I was back in a church formed from composite images and memories.
Rose was relaxing her use of Conquest, and I could see as this Conquest retracted the tendrils and branches.
“I can’t help but note that you hold more ground than you did before she drew on you for power,” I said. “You’re still here, for one thing.”
Conquest smiled with her pinched mouth. She stepped down from the altar, fingers touching the petals that had fallen around the base of the bouquets. Another sign of lingering influence. “Rose knows what I’m doing. She knows the price.”