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The house has many doors, he picks the blue one and finds himself in the woods at the edge of town, it is night and the woods are silent and still to the point where he is uncomfortable.  He knows this path.  At the top of the hill he finds a fox waiting patiently, “Okay, what do you have for me?”  he asks her and she leads him through the forest.  At the edge of the clearing, it waits and he knows he is supposed to continue on his own.  The field is full of poppies, he wasn’t expecting that, he continues because that is what he needs to do.  In the center of a field is a perfectly round clear pond, he hasn’t been here before, that is unusual, his map is usually very familiar.  He breathes slowly and looks into the pool, whatever he sees there is what it is, he is surprised to find a dove beneath the surface.  He slides his hand in, the water is cool and smooth, like water but thick, like syrup, there is no change in the surface when he reaches in and pulls the dove out, it is dry, it is calm, it is willing.  If he wants to know he knows what he must do.  He thanks the bird, even if it’s not real it’s important to acknowledge such things.  He needs supplies, and he finds them right there beside him, he kills the bird, puncturing its throat and the blood spills onto the surface before him.  He is alarmed to find the blood is blue, when he looks down at the dove it is no longer a dove, it is a sparrow.  He would never kill a sparrow, what has he done?  He puts the sparrow down, his heart racing, what has he done?  He wipes his hands on his pants, blue blood spreading.  He turns and finds a great black wolf standing beside him, eyes blue like the blood on his hands, he shows them to him, “Why?”  he asks him and the wolf turns and bows its head.

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Laura parked her car in the driveway outside of the small cabin, she pulled the mirror down and checked her makeup, ran her fingers through her blonde curls, she glanced at the front of the house and pressed on the horn twice and went back to fixing her lipstick. 

When she checked again and saw no movement she sighed and climbed from the car, pressing on the horn again.  When there was still no movement, she left it unlocked as she picked her way in stiletto heels up the muddy driveway, muttering to herself.

She avoided a suspicious shifty board on the porch and knocked on the door, careful to avoid the blue eye painted at its center.

“Come in, Laura!”  she heard and slowly pushed the door open.  She was hit with the stench of burning hair and flinched at that, clapping her hand over her nose and mouth.

“You okay in there?” she called, her voice muffled.  She had learned long ago to be cautious when entering Bash’s home.

“Yeah, yeah come in,” he was deep inside the house, she suspected he might even be in the basement.  She entered the home and the hair on her arm stood up as she crossed the threshold.  She pushed aside the tapestry that hung over the doorway and dodging dried herbs and flowers hanging from his rafters.

“Sebastian, where are you?” she called, stepping carefully through the house.  There was a loud caw and Laura flinched, spinning to find Poe, Bash’s one-eyed crow peering at her with its head cocked sideways. She scowled at it and kept on her way, the smell getting stronger.

“Spit in this,” Bash ordered, appearing directly in front of her with a glass test tube.

“What? Why? No, why?” she asked, startled, pulling her head away.

“It’s either that or I cut your hair again,” he shrugged.  His hair was wild, his maple brown eyes tired.

She pushed his curls to the side fondly, “Okay I’ll spit for you,” she said gently, then leaned forward and spit in the test tube.  He held it up to the light and hummed at it, scowling, “What? What do you see?”

“Cheetos?” he asked and she rolled her eyes.

“Gross! Bash, what the fuck is going on?”  He turned to his kitchen and she followed and tried not to gag as she watched him add her saliva to a pot full of green liquid on his stove.  He reached into the cupboard, hovering his hand over the hundreds of tiny grimy jars inside. 

She ducked her head to see his face and saw his eyes were closed, his hand paused and he plucked a small jar from the middle and looked at it, humming in surprise.  “Okay, then,” he said as if confused, then he shrugged and uncorked the jar, he poured a small hill of the yellow powder into his palm.  He looked at it a moment, as if not sure what to do next, glanced around the room in thought, then spit in his palm, rubbing it between his hands, staining his palms yellow with the resulting paste. Laura grimaced at that, this… magic… or whatever was gross 90% of the time. 

"Are you okay, Bash?  you seem a little more flustered than usual."

"I'm fine, thank you for asking," he looked up, with a soft “oo” as if inspiration had struck him, and pulled a tin from the shelf above the stove.  When he tipped the tin over, acorns spilled over the countertop, scattering and rolling across the floor. 

Laura bent to pick them up, “You... wanna tell me what’s up?”

He rolled one acorn at a time between his hands, smearing them with the yellow spit paste, muttering under his breath before dropping them each into the pot on the stove.

“My mother, well maybe my mother, tricked me into killing a sparrow last night, a sparrow!” he said disbelievingly, scoffing and huffing out amazed laughter and throwing his hands up, “but she wouldn’t do that, so I’m pretty sure it was a… it was either, okay, either A) not a big deal or… not… like B) not… so… yes, a big deal… like… and maybe it was a wolf pretending to be my mother? --I’m not certain. I don’t even know.”

Laura raised an eyebrow, "A wolf?"

“A blue-eyed wolf,” he clarified, “yeah, not my map. Not… my… map!” he said, wide-eyed.

“O… kay, this is bad?” she asked.

He tipped his head from side to side, weighing the answer, “The fox was my mother, my maybe mother… but it occurred to me that it could have been another of Us…” Laura knew he meant other witches and warlocks, or whatever he was, nobody dared call him that to his face, only when he wasn’t around because he never gave a name for what he was and he only sometimes talked about himself in vague plurals when referencing what he did, “and they were disguising themselves… or…”  he thought for a moment, looking at the ceiling.  “The pool was self-reflection, but the viscosity… you know? —like… fake… like fake water? --or… and the dove is romantic love… but the sparrow is friendship… and the water wasn’t wet... almost like a false… like a false reflection? --that wolf though… he seemed kind,”  he said nodding, “but the blood was blue like his eyes… what am I even supposed to do with that? –right?”

He lit a match, dropping it into the pot and Laura flinched with a squeak as the contents burst into flames, Bash flinched too, ducking out of the way, “Almost lost my eyelashes with that one,” he muttered, waving his hand to clear the smoke.  The flames almost immediately went out again. “The dream wasn’t right,” he told her seriously.  He gasped, “the door was blue too!”  he said, smacking himself in the forehead with his palm, leaving a yellow stain, “I really need to write this down… I forgot that that’s three blues… three is good!” he said fairly, considering. 

Laura used her sleeve to wipe his forehead and Bash didn’t seem to even notice, “Shh, Bash, slow down a little, yeah?” she said gently.

“Not my map, so it was given to me… but I don’t know by whom or why. Totally not my fucking map, not even kind of… so maybe not a trick? Because it was so obvious, maybe just a gift… but can’t be too careful. There were poppies,” he nodded sagely, “you take poppies seriously.”

He held a blacked acorn between them, “Put this in your pocket,” he instructed, “look at its cute little hat,” he says baby talking the acorn and making it dance between them.  She carefully plucked it from between his fingers, telling herself the fire had sterilized the spit.  She expected it to be hot, but it was cold to the touch, like ice, so cold she almost dropped it, but it warmed quickly in her fingers.  She slipped it into her pocket, “What will it do?”

Bash shrugged, “Not sure, really, I did a few things there, some protections and… some clarifying…. and I mixed in some of Walter’s hair,” Laura looked over to Bash’s black cat looking disgruntled where he was hiding in his normal spot under the window seat, “I didn’t have black wolf hair, you know, obviously, but it’ll do. They understand,” he said gesturing to the ceiling and Laura couldn’t help but look up at the soot-stained ceiling above the stove. 

He continued to mumble as he put the rest of the acorns in a Ziplock baggy, “… some identifiers… the acorn for others like Us, or… whatever the wolf was… rose in case she was my mother, bay laurel if she was someone else… and some basil… a little of everything...  I’m not sure, it was something new I whipped up, it should cover all of our bases.”

“What are you concerned about?”

“I don’t know… it was about my friends, so… better safe than sorry.”

“About who? Us?  All of us?”

Bash searched her eyes, and nodded, “Drink this,” he ordered, lifting a steaming cup between them.  She wasn’t sure where it came from, but she drank it obediently as he nodded, encouraging her to finish it so she did.

“What is it?” she asked when she had finished, it was minty and bitter.

“Tea,” he told her.

“For what?” she asked, eyes big.

Bash scowled, “To… taste yummy?”  he said confused and Laura scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Jesus Bash, we’re late, we don’t have time for tea.”

He snatched the cup from her, “Always time for tea,” he told her and tipped the cup upside down on his dirty counter.  He swirled it, the porcelain grinding against the tile, then lifted the cup, “Grab my tarot cards please,” he said distractedly as he held the cup close to his nose, squinting down into the tea leaves.  He used his pinky to pluck out a smidge of residue and Laura was pretty sure that was cheating, but went ahead and moved away from him, “Also get the Cards Against Humanity box,” he added, “you’re on my team, we’ll kick Stew’s ass if you’re on my team.”

Laura stepped carefully into the next room, avoiding stacks of books and papers, and found a small box on his shelf, she opened it expecting to find his tarot cards wrapped in black cloth, “It’s empty!”  she called.

“What?”  he squawked, stepping around the corner, he was holding a platter of deviled eggs, “Where did they go?”  he asked.

“Where did you leave them?” she countered.

“There, of course, they’ve never run off before!”  he said, and frowned like how’ bout that?

“You promised readings,” Laura pouted.

“I’ll buy some on the way, I need to buy beer anyway,” he said, waving dismissively and opening the front door. He held the tapestry with his elbow, “Poe, out!” he yelled and the crow immediately flew past them and out the door, “Walter, stay away from the back bedroom, I haven’t got that under control yet!”  he called back into the house and they exited.

“Shall I lock it?  Laura asked.

Bash laughed, “Yeah right! No,” he said seriously and slopped through the mud to Laura’s little red sports car, “Come on, Solstice waits for none!”  he called excitedly, “I want hot dogs!”

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Laura’s house was a huge, modern, glass and steel beam behemoth hanging off a cliff on the south-western tip of the island.  It was tucked into a small mostly private cove facing the inner islands and the mainland.  It took about 40 minutes by winding island drive to get from Bash’s cabin at the edge of the preserve that made up the east side of the island facing Victoria, Canada to Laura's fancy-ass mansion. 

Bash preferred, when they did these get-togethers, to hold them at David’s place or Liz’s even though it got pretty claustrophobic pretty fucking quickly, or even having them take place at Vera's on the main island, which, though further away, was at least close to the ferries and he could leave when he wanted to.  Since he didn't drive, he was at the mercy of Laura's schedule when he stayed at her place, and was kind of expected to spend the night, which, okay, he usually enjoyed, but he liked to at least have a choice in the matter.  Also, Laura sometimes invited her mainland friends who, if not monitored, could end up treating Bash like a sideshow circus freak if someone spilled the beans on his… eh… hobbies.

Bash stood on the balcony looking over the small backyard and the rocky beach below, the wind matched his mood, restless and wild.  The tall evergreens surrounding the house were bending and rusting in the wind, and Bash’s fingers were tapping out a steady nervous rhythm against the side of his beer bottle. 

Bash looked down to where the waves were crashing onto the rocks below.  Laura had hired some people to put in a steep wooden staircase the year she bought the place and two summers ago had a dock put in.  She didn’t own a boat, but they sometimes spent summer nights down there drinking and playing music or would wander down the beach to the spit to skinny dip in the inlet or watch the distant ferry traffic if they hiked over the hill to the west beach.

“Watch the fucking front door, the wind keeps trying to smash it into the mirror!” Laura called, and Bash turned to see new people coming in, it looked like Liz and Jenn maybe, “Can someone put something behind the door so it won’t hit the mirror?” Laura was calling, as she took a plate of food from Liz and kissed her cheek.  Nobody seemed to answer her.  Bash considered going in to do it for her but the front door closed and it was no longer an immediate concern.

“Yo, Bash, is this wind going to calm the fuck down?” Liz yelled from inside.

“Do I look like a god-damn weatherman?” he called back, more irritable than he intended and Liz frowned dramatically.

“He’s in a mood,” Laura muttered, but Bash could still hear her, he realized she probably wanted him to.

If the wind did die down, the plan that night, for whoever was still game (read: sober enough) was to hike to The Fort, which was squad-speak for the guest house perched on top of the hill in a clearing at the edge of the property.  They were going to move the party there, then sleep outside near a campfire when the party died down.  Bash had planned for the long weekend and brought an overnight bag which was tucked away in Laura’s guest room in the basement next to her recording studio.  Usually, guests fought it out to try to get her upstairs rooms with their views of the sea, but the downstairs guest room was small and private and had a door out the back that lead directly into the forest, it was his favorite room.

The crowd wasn’t bad tonight, it was almost completely their small circle of closest friends, with the exception of a few stragglers that seemed to be friends of Daisy and Mishka.  Bash nursed his beer, feeling more settled with the sound of water below him and the laughter of his friends behind him.  Dave had Laura’s guitar and was playing something that he vaguely recognized, he stepped closer to the living room, feeling the warmth on his back and listened.

“Bastian,” he heard, simple and sweet behind him and turned to find his best friend leaning against the accordioned glass wall that opened to the porch. Green eyes and pink hair, worn bue jeans, and a soft yellow sweater, she looked like a walking, talking pastel hug.

“Larkin,” he said back to her, matching her tone.

“You’re quiet,” she noted, and immediately held out a hand-rolled joint, already spilling sweet smelling smoke into the wind between them.

“On the outside, I guess, on the inside, my mind is so very loud,” he corrected her and she frowned, “I’m stoned,” he told her, making empty excuses, but then took the joint anyway.

“He wore his ass out, worrying,” Dave called to them, Bash looked back to see him in his stupid bike shorts, dark curls captured in a ponytail, guitar perched on his knee.

“Dave and his fucking bike shorts,” Lark said as if reading Bash’s mind, “I never know where to look when his junk is just on display everywhere.”

“I had dreams last night,” Bash explained, and Larkin looked back at him.

She nodded, “Bad ones?” she watched him inhale and hugged her sweater against herself, "--about Dave's junk?"

“Confusing ones," he corrected, then added, "about Dave's junk,"  he joked. "Speaking of nuts, here, have this,” he said, remembering, and held the joint between his lips as he pulled the baggy of acorns from his pocket.

“Look at its little hat,"  she said happily and Bash smiled at that. "I saw these, they were talking about them inside, I was starting to feel left out,” she teased.  She raised it to her nose, smelling it and wrinkling her nose.

“He spat on that, so you know,” Laura called from the kitchen.

“So did you, remember,” Bash yelled back.

“I’m not scared of a little Bash spit,” Larkin said quietly, looking down at the acorn in her hands, and Bash’s neck burned a little, immediately followed by feeling ridiculous.

“Yeah, just… keep it on you for a few days until I feel it out, yeah?”  he asked her.

“Of course,” she said, and looked out over the water, rolling the acorn between her fingers.

He watched her profile, the sun behind her through the trees.  When she looked back he spoke, “What is Dave playing?” he asked, mostly just for something to say.

Lark laughed, eyes bright as she glanced back to the room, “You don’t recognize it?”

“I can’t place it.”

“It’s Laura’s new one.”

Bash shook his head in surprise, “Good thing I asked you and not her.”

She watched his fingers tap against the side of his bottle, “She’d really start to question your mental state then,” Lark said, then leaned into his shoulder and stayed there.

His mental state, “I was drunk, that’s my excuse,” he said and leaned back against her, feeling his nerves settle.

“Everyone was drunk that weekend, surprised we didn’t end up recording ten overly emotional love songs about Dave’s craft beer,” Bash grinned and Larkin looked down at her acorn again, “Released the same night, Artisanal: the Manbun Album,” Larkin continued and Bash snorted into his beer bottle. “As it was, Laura ended up spamming about a dozen inappropriate Tweets before her publicist managed to cut her off, she was banned from her from her own Twitter feed for a month.”

“We’ll have to take her phone away at some point tonight, she’s been doing Jell-O shots since three.”

“Jesus Christ, this will be a fun night, I can tell already,” she said half to herself and took the joint back from Bash just long enough to fill her lungs.  She leaned back, peering into the house with a scowl, “Is she wearing stilettos?  She’s going to break her fucking neck.”

“We’ll confiscate her shoes too, we’re going up to The Fort.”

“I know, I’m so excited! You’ll do a reading for me?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Now?” she asked cautiously, tugging at his sleeve and he let her pull him into the house.

He sat down across from her at the kitchen counter, immediately drawing a crowd, he handed her the cards, that he had left sitting there from his earlier readings, “Shuffle these,” he directed and leaned on his elbows, inhaling deeply from the joint.

“Are those playing cards?” Jenn asked, uncertain.

“They work,” Larkin assured her, “he’s used them before with me.”

“I couldn’t find my cards when I left my house,” he explained defensively, watching Lark shuffle the cards carefully, the wind was pushing in through the open wall ruffling through Larkin’s hair, pink curls across her forehead.

Laura slid a fresh bottle of beer onto the counter beside Bash, “He’s pretty certain they up and wandered off,” she teased and Bash ignored her, she was usually very sweet to him, but she had new people around her and sometimes she got a little condescending and dismissive of him when there were new people to impress, “he picked up playing cards at the grocery store when we stopped for beer,” the group chuckled at this and Lark’s eyes flicked up to his, checking on him.

Bash just exhaled an imperfect ring of smoke that framed her face, making her smile, “Three piles please, face down,” he said, though she was already doing it. Bash took a swig of his beer and pulled his foot up onto his stool, watching the cards.

He restlessly tapped his fingernails on the underside of the recycled glass countertop, his eyes flicked up to her face and his hand smoothed over his knee distractedly as he considered her, “You’ve been… are you hurting somewhere?” he asked.

“My knee,” Lark told him and someone was murmuring behind him, someone else hushed them.

“It’s okay,” Bash assured her, “go to the doctor, though, yeah?”

“Okay,” she agreed.

He laid out the bottom card of each pile, looked over them and over her, he watched her hands folded on the table top, the acorn pressed under her palm, the muscles of her jaw twitching as she clenched her teeth. The rest of the room faded away, “There’s some stress here, you’re worried…” an image of a hall with identical doors, “choices… you have, um…”  his hand hovered over the eight of hearts, “you have to make a difficult choice…” there was an awkward, but warm twist somewhere in his chest, he closed his eyes, the floor of the hall was dirt, a white squirrel digging in the soil, between his bare feet, it looked up at him, which was odd, but he felt confident when he said, “some financial concerns, like immediate ones,” he opened his eyes, “there are more than two doors to choose from… and they all look alike, which makes it difficult to know which one is right…”  Larkin wasn’t nodding or anything, she just watched him with a slight frown on her face, but Bash knew she understood him.  

He started to nod, focusing on the uneasiness he felt, the anxiety was his own, not hers so he pushed it aside, he met her eyes across the table, “Whatever you decide is going to turn out to be okay,” he waited for her eyes to hold on his, “you can do this,” he told her, “several options are okay, if you put thought and care into your choice, it will be okay… what you decide on,” he concluded.  She smiled at him but it didn’t quite make it to her eyes.  He reached down to turn over another card and paused, then two more, he looked up at her, “Are you… are you moving?” he asked her.

Lark looked at him carefully and everyone else was quiet, “There’s a thing…”  she began.

“Dude!” Dave yelled behind him, sounding impressed, and Laura hushed him.

Bash could feel some tension in the room, “Where’s Mish?” Laura called across the room, distracting everyone, “Mishka, you’re next,” she singsonged, not even asking if Bash was done with Larkin.

Bash gathered up the cards uncomfortably, “It’s just an idea, Bash, nothing is set,” Lark said, leaning across the table towards him.

He smiled at her, reassuringly, though it felt tight on his face, “Whatever you decide is going to work out, Lark, it’ll be okay… for everybody,” he promised her, keeping his tone light, she didn’t look convinced.

“Shove off, woman!” Mishka said, bumping her hip against Larkin, Larkin stood, taking her beer and acorn with her and Bash cleared his throat.

He watched Mishka settle across from him and drank from his beer, he glanced at the dead roach of the joint between his fingers, “Fuck, I wasted it,” he complained and someone plucked it from his fingers.

“Dais, get over here!”  Laura called and soon Mishka’s girlfriend was leaning beside her across the counter.

When his eyes moved back to Mishka and Daisy, he felt something odd and tingly coiling beneath his skin, he eyed them suspiciously, Mishka bit her lip, “Shuffle these,” he ordered and she did.  Daisy and Mishka exchanged some kind of loaded look and Bash narrowed his eyes at them and turned over the first card, three of hearts, he flipped the next two, nine of hearts, ten of hearts, he looked up at them, “Your wedding…”  he began, images symbolizing their upcoming wedding flooded his mind, it was a one-track-mind kind of reading, “wedding, wedding, wedding…” he mumbled.  Mishka grinned, he flipped over three more cards, on top of the previous cards, he looked them over, considered them carefully and looked up at Mishka and Daisy, “Wait… seriously?”

“What?” someone asked.

“Am I reading this right?” Bash asked them.

Daisy smiled and leaned into Mishka, “Mish and I decided to go ahead and get married… tonight… here,” she told them, “up at The Fort.”

The group erupted into excited jabbering, Laura remained quiet, an excited grin plastered to her face.  She obviously was already in the loop. “What about all of your wedding plans?” Dave asked, no doubt mourning the loss of the destination wedding in Cabo they had invited him to.

Mishka held Daisy’s hand, “It’s still happening, but we were getting so stressed out, and there were some rumors about the paps getting a heads up, we decided to kind of, like, give ourselves a pop-up wedding tonight… kind of elope… just with you guys here.  Daphne there… Daph?”  Mishka called and a young woman in a red dress waved her hand from the couch, "Daphne is going to do it for us when we go at sunset.”

The whole group smiled and laughed and cheered, hugging the couple, and Bash gathered his cards, smiling up at the group quietly, he looked down at his cards and silently laid three out before him. Ace of hearts, ace... of hearts,… ace... of... hearts. He stared down at the cards, confused.

“What the fuck?” Dave laughed, over his shoulder, “Dude, you have dud cards, you guys are so full of shit!” he patted Bash solidly on the shoulder, making his body jerk, “You had me going, good one!”

Bash looked up at Larkin and she searched his face.  He just shook his head at her, “Bash…?” she asked and then everything seemed to happen at once.  Lark’s words were cut off, as across the room the front door slammed open, crashing into the mirror.  Scattered screams went through the room as shards of glass fell to the entry hall floor, at the same moment a tremendous gust of wind came in through the back, strong enough to lift the tablecloth, tipping over the half-full beer bottles that had been littering the table.  The bottles fell with a tremendous crash, and the gust added tot he chaos by blowing Bash’s cards around the living room in a glorious flurry.

“Jesus, fuck, sorry, holy shit!” someone called from the front door.  Bash peered around to see a young man with dark hair standing wide-eyed with a bottle of wine

“Everybody, calm the fuck down!”  Laura yelled, then to the man at the door, “Stay there, don’t move, let me get the broom.”

“Holy crap, I think I shit myself!”  Dave said in awe, drinking his beer that had survived since he’d never put it down, Liz laughed beside him.  The man at the front door looked horrified, still vomiting out an endless stream of embarrassed apologies as he waited patiently, glass surrounding his feet.  The others made themselves useful, rushing to help clean up and help the man make his way into the house.

“I’m so sorry, the wind just ripped the door out of my hands,” he was explaining.

Bash turned to look out the back door only to see that everything was calm and still, the breeze not even strong enough to make the curtains shift now.

“It’s just a mirror, don’t worry,” Laura was saying to him, then turned, gesturing towards him, “Just seven years of bad luck, and an awkward garbage pick-up.” 

He looked at her wide-eyed for a moment, as if just noticing her, “Oh god, I broke Laura LeClair’s mirror,” he said in a breath.

Dave snickered, “It’s okay man, she might be rich and famous but she can easily replace a $10,000 mirror, like everybody else… who’s rich and famous.”

“Ten-thou…,” the man began but Laura interrupted, giving Dave an unimpressed look.

“No, no, I bought it at Target for $50,” she reassured him, no doubt lying.

Daisy moved to the man, throwing an arm around him, “This unlucky bastard, who certainly knows how to make an entrance, is Alex, Alex, this is everybody… Alex just moved to the island,” she explained.

“Back. Back to the island,” he corrected her, “I went to school with Daisy… and now I’ll never be invited anywhere ever again,” he pouted, his face still red.  Bash watched him warily and when Alex looked up, his blue eyes met Bash’s and Bash scowled, remembering the blue-eyed wolf from his dream.  Alex’s eyebrows raised up toward his hairline and his eyes darted away.  Bash dug his hand into his pocket and squeezed an acorn in his fist, frustrated when he felt nothing unusual. He looked around the room and saw no reaction, even from Larkin who was holding her acorn in her fist out in the open.

“You’re late,” Daisy accused Alex.

“They wouldn’t let me through the gate at the bottom of the hill, they had my last name misspelled.”

“How do you spell it?” Laura asked as she tried to take down the broken mirror frame, Alex rushed to help her.

“Odom, O-d-o-m,” Bash’s brain buzzed in recognition.

“I thought Daisy said Autumn, like the season,” Laura said apologetically.

“No harm done, I made it past security, only had to endure an enthusiastic body cavity search,” he joked, already seeming to be at ease.

Liz laughed, “Fuck, wish he’d forget my name!”

“Yes, harm done, you missed the big reveal!” Daisy cried out, shoving Alex’s shoulder, he raised his eyebrows again, “Mishka and I are getting hitched at sunset!”

Alex lit up, “What? Wh—wh… when did this become a thing?” he asked in shock.

As Daisy explained the situation with the paparazzi having intel on their Cabo wedding plans, Bash started to collect his cards from the floor.  Soon Larkin was beside him helping, “Bash, the last three cards you put down, those are always for you, right?”

Bash felt himself nod stiffly, “Just a fucked-up pack,” he mumbled.

Larkin was quiet as she collected the cards, “Does that mean my reading was inaccurate?”

“No,” Bash admitted, he felt Lark’s eyes on him but she didn’t ask anything else and he didn’t offer.

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The convoy was 18 people strong when 8 pm rolled around and they started the hike across the property towards The Fort.  The group gathered their belongings and they had relieved Laura of her stilettos in favor of only slightly more reasonable flip-flops.  Luckily, they had also convinced her to stop drinking before their potluck and barbeque dinner, so she was sober enough to not snap an ankle catching her flip-flop on a tree root.  She stumbled along in a red sequin bikini top and white capris balancing a paper plate full of little barbeque chicken wings and Bash’s Deviled eggs.

“Bash, sweetie, what’s in these eggs, I can’t stop eating them,” she mumbled, as her shoe slipped on the scree on a particularly sharp incline. 

“Eye of newt,” Bash answered without missing a beat, making Lark chuckle beside him.

“Well tell Newt thanks for the sacrifice because I’m fixin’ to eat these ‘til I puke,” Laura informed them.  At that, some guy named Tristan, who nobody seemed to know but with whom she’d been flirting all afternoon, planted his hands firmly on Laura’s ass and shoved her up the hill unceremoniously, “Thanks, Honey,” she threw back to him.  Bash turned to help Lark up over the tree roots and spotted Alex at the back of the group talking with Dave.  He lifted his gaze and met Bash’s for a moment and Bash couldn’t help but glare at him.  There was just something not quite right with him.

The Fort was a visually low-profile studio guest house lined with glass walls.  It snugged in among the rocks and trees looking like it was hiding and stalking prey and was surrounded by a deck with more square footage than the building itself and a sunken fire pit.  The decking was extended over the cliff edge, existing under what Bash imagined was the power of black magic and fear of disappointing Laura rather than actual physics.

Someone had been up here already, and it evidently wasn’t Laura, based on how she went on gushing about gorgeous flower arrangements and how well the place was stocked up for the group… or actually, knowing her, it very well could have been her handiwork she was complimenting.  

Sunset was at 9:16, according to Bash and confirmed by a quick Google search on Vera’s cellphone, and the group happily waved goodbye to the longest day of the year, while Bash and Dave started the fire.  Bash kept track of where Alex was and watched him participate, blowing heartfelt kisses to the sun with Larkin and laughing with Laura.

He looked back down when Dave caught him watching and quietly added sage to the kindling as Dave smirked at him, condescending douchebag that he was sometimes.  As soon as the sun was low enough to not be blinding the group, everybody sank down into the grass and around on the lawn chairs and the edge of the deck as Daisy, Mishka, and Daphne stood out on the precariously death-defying-decking-of-doom, smiling happily at each other, seemingly without care for their imminent demise.

“I guess that’s what love is,” Dave said quietly when Bash pointed it out.

“What’s love?” Larkin asked, leaning close enough to Bash for him to smell her sunscreen.

“Blissful ignorance of your impending death by alliteration,” Dave told them and took a photo of the happy couple while Daphne performed some version of a handfasting ceremony.  His words really meant nothing, but Bash felt a nostalgic emptiness for this thing he didn’t know, nonetheless.

He couldn’t tell you what was said by Daisy or Mishka or even by Daphne, just that tears were shed and Bash felt mostly wariness at the whole thing and then guilt over his wariness.  There was no room for doubt in a moment like that and he felt as if he shouldn’t be there tainting the experience.  He attempted to make up for it by privately muttering good thoughts into the fire afterward, while Laura, now classed up in a cashmere wrap sweater, ordered people about to turn on the fairy lights and start some music.

Bash tucked himself against the curved stone bench seating and hugged his knees to his chest as he watched the flames crackle before him.  His mind started to focus, dulling around the edges, he let his eyes still, looking through the flames, the variation of colors, the movement, the tail of a fox, the crest of waves, the spotted fin of an orca, the wink of its eye looking out at him from the blackened base of the fire, the pupil expanded and constricted focusing on his gaze and blinked itself away…

“Bash?”  Bash blinked back into the now, looking up at Larkin who was standing before him with a paper lantern, “Hey, babe, want to let a lantern loose?”

Bash looked to the edge of the deck where the rest of the group had congregated lighting and releasing paper lanterns into the newly darkened sky while Dave recorded them. He let her pull him to his feet and stood beside her at the railing, she held the lantern up as he lit it, he looked up to the city lights on the main island, and ferry traffic in the south, and remembered what his grandmother used to say, calling the fire element, “… upon the land, the sea, the heavens,” he whispered the last line and let the lantern go.  He watched them float above, the slight breeze pushing them west towards the setting sun. 

Bash thought of his grandmother then and missed her intensely, how much he wished he had her still.  Larkin leaned against his back, stretching to rest her chin on his shoulder and wrap her arms around his ribs.  He let her and held her wrists under his palms.

=====

Chapter Text

Chapter 3

=====

The house has many doors, again he picks the blue one, quickly now because he is pretty sure he knows where he is going, and he’d like to see her again, he has some questions.  He is initially surprised to find the doorway first leads to his very own backyard and that controversial oak tree that lives there.  He runs his hand along the rough bark, steps over the acorns littering the ground.  The sky above is a night sky, but the stars are evenly spaced and of uniform brightness, glittering in sync with one another. Well-behaved stars are just not natural. Just past the edge of his yard, he again finds himself in the woods at the edge of town.  This time though, all of the grand old wind-warped conifers and fern covered undergrowth are replaced by an endless forest of perfectly shaped and organized Christmas trees.  He doesn’t have to look for the hill here, the fox is sitting primly and in plain view in the center of a grand red X in a clearing. “Hello, again,” he says to the fox, with amusement, he looks down to see the X is made of the petals of Poppies.  This fox is a smartass, “Okay, I get it, sorry if I am a bit slow,” he says to her, and she smiles, yes, she smiles. “I’m sorry, you’re not who I thought you were, I don’t know how I thought you were… but I know you, don’t I?”  He looks around at this obviously contrived map, it’s hard to read foxes, so he just asks, “Is it like this to show me that you mean no harm or because you are not concerned about hiding it if you do?” he asks and she responds by gently placing a white squirrel at his feet with her careful muzzle.  Without even checking he knows that it is simply asleep.  When he picks it up its body is warm and soft, curling into his hands and he knows he needs to care for it. He hugs it to his chest, and it sinks under his skin nestled inside his chest.  Warm and safe, its little heart slight and fast inside his own.  He continues into the poppy field. The pond is there where it was before, but it is smaller this time, more of a large puddle, but perfectly round and lined with barnacle and eelgrass covered rocks, little crabs scuttle beneath the surface as it starts to shift.  The center is deep and black and begins to roil, bubbles break the surface, creating matching bubbles of concern rising within him.  The surface breaks, and then there is a spotted and scarred black dorsal fin breaking the surface, taking up nearly the entire area of the puddle, and making him fall back.  The fin cuts back below the surface, and he leans back over to see the watchful eye of the orca peering back at him with a grey iris and black pupil.  “Hello, friend,” he says to him. His feet are cold, and he looks down to find his bare feet on cold cement, an inch or so of water pooling over his feet, leaves, and detritus float by, he can feel them wet against his ankles.  Suddenly, so close to his ear he can feel their hot breath, he hears a whispered voice, “Hello?” it says, frantic, then, “Help! Hello?!”  the voice screams, cracked and worn.

-----

Bash jerked awake to find himself on the wicker patio sofa on the back porch of The Fort; he could still feel the small rapid heartbeat of the squirrel beneath his own stronger one.  The first light of Saturday morning had broken, signifying that it was somewhere around 4:30 am.  “It’s still early,” someone said, and Bash looked towards his feet to find Alex curled on the matching chair beside the couch, wrapped in a large quilt, his dark, thick hair sticking up around him messily, bright blue eyes tired.

Bash didn’t bother answering, he tried to move and realized he was pinned down by an arm thrown over his ribs, he turned to find Larkin curled up behind him.  He carefully removed her arm and sat up stretching the stiffness in his back.  His paused to assess for a hangover just to realize he was still technically drunk. 

“You were having a nightmare,” Alex told him.

Bash bent his neck, eliciting satisfying juicy pops along his spine, “What’s your excuse?”  Bash asked him.

“Excuse? For what?”  Alex asked, defensive.

“For being awake at 4:30 in the morning.”

“Oh,” Alex said, calming, “too many people around, unfamiliar place… etcetera, etcetera,” he shrugged, Bash noticed a cup steaming between his hands, coffee probably.

There was a tent in the yard, and Jenn and Vera were in sleeping bags on the grass to the right. The fire was nothing but ash and light wisps of smoke. “There are guest rooms down at the house; Laura wouldn’t mind if you took one,”

“Thanks, I’ll nap later probably,” Alex’s eyes slid back to Lark, “you have good friends, they are good people,” he said to him.

“I know,” Bash said sharper than he intended.

Alex shook his head a bit, “You don’t like me.”

“I don’t know you, no reason not to like you,” Bash corrected and stood up. 

“Nah, you don’t like me,” Alex said simply, “I’m hungover, are you hungover?

Bash looked around, clips and flashes from the night before coming back to him, “No, still drunk,” he said distractedly.  He looked towards the lower deck:  the group is dancing to Stevie Wonder, still mostly sober and behaving themselves, Bash is roasting marshmallows with Vera and Jenn.  Dave and Alex are bro-ing it up on the other side of the firepit, and Bash can’t stop watching them, he blames the beer. “Did Dave stay last night?”

“He went back to the house, at around two, he and Laura spent some time in her recording studio apparently, and he said he was going for a bike ride before breakfast,” Alex stared in disbelief.

“Fucking psychopath,” Bash said under his breath.

The studio?  

Bash vaguely remembered being laid out on the outdoor couch at about 1 am while Dave and Laura sang Kings of Summer near the fire.  Even though they were drunk and high and tired and overly emotional, their voices were pure and bright and perfect and echoed off the cliffs around them.  Alex had been sitting on that same chair at that time, silently recording them on his phone. Bash had made a point of falling asleep before he could talk to him.

“Is there more coffee?” he asked, already moving towards The Fort.

“Yes, I made some with a French press I found in the kitchen,” Alex said sitting up in interest.

Bash didn’t wait for him; he walked through the open front of The Fort, there were nests of blankets on the floor, the king size bed in the back was piled with bodies also.  He moved quickly past them and poured himself some coffee and considered staying there to drink it. He convinced himself he would go back out for the sunrise, though.

He moved back to the porch, and stood by the couch, “Larkin says you grew up here?” Alex asked.

“Yeah, between here and Madrona, my whole life,” he told him, not sure why he was still talking to him.

“So, you just know Laura from just…”

“From just being from here,” he finished, looking down at his coffee.

“Do…”  Alex started.

“I’m going down to the house to sleep,” Bash interrupted him. He noticed Alex look at Larkin and immediately reached down to shake her shoulder, she woke up alarmed, “I’m going down to the house,” he announced and Lark groggily started gathering her things, searching for her phone under the couch, her face was pillow creased.

“Yeah, okay,” she mumbled and stood, looking frumpy and disoriented.  She clasped Bash’s hand without another word, as they neared the corner of the house Lark pulled him to a stop, “Alex, are you coming?”  she asked, and Bash scowled.  Alex hesitated before dropping his quilt and finding his phone and jacket on the table and hurrying after them. 

Bash pulled Lark to start walking, and they passed a twisted conifer tree near the cliff’s edge. There were shards of the broken mirror now tied to the branches with fishing line, “Did we do that?”  she asked.

Bash remembered the task, Lark digging in the shed and finding a fishing pole to disembowel, sitting in the dewy grass.  With the memory came the awareness of small cuts along his fingertips, “Yep.”

“They let us get that close to the edge of the cliff?  Jesus,” Lark breathed.

“I kept an eye on you,” Alex said to her, and Bash looked back at him, “both of you… I mean I was there, I wouldn’t have let you fall,” he finished, and Bash held Lark closer as they made their way down the path towards the house.

Lark laughed suddenly, “We caught Mish and Daisy having sex!” she reminded them.

Bash remembered Laura and Tristan grinding to Slow Motion by Juvenile.  He remembered he and Larkin making fun of them for a while like embarrassed children catching their parents kissing, then busied themselves stringing broken shards of mirror up in a tree with fishing line. He’d found Alex watching them from the edge of the patio before he joined them.

“What are you doing?”  Alex had asked. 

Lark had started saying something about bad luck, but Bash had interrupted and answered, “I don’t feel I need to explain my art to you, Alex.”

Alex had chuckled, a little uncomfortable, and then had started chatting up Lark.  Bash only managed to regain her attention when he discovered Mishka and Daisy in the outdoor shower behind the studio.

“Come on, I’m fucking exhausted,” Bash grumped, pulling Lark to stumble along the path.

“Slow down, asshole,” Lark complained, but then leaned into him as they reached the bottom of the hill.

Their trek was quiet as they made their way along the beach, until they passed another group of guests on the lower lawn, exchanging sleepy greetings with them from their huddle near a small campfire. The tide was high, so their shoes got wet until they started walking along the driftwood.  At the bottom of the stairs, Lark whined pathetically and launched herself onto Bash’s back, making him carry her up the first staircase, at which point he called her a fat ass and dumped her onto the landing before climbing onto her back instead.  She laughed and stumbled before Bash gave up and jumped back down so they could climb beside each other.  An immature part of Bash’s brain hoped Alex felt excluded, the fucking interloper, but when he looked back Alex was smiling at them and Bash felt like an asshole.

They made it to the house, and Bash pointed Alex in the direction of the sofa in the basement living area outside the recording studio, then pulled Lark after him down the hall to his bedroom, he could feel Alex’s eyes on them until the door closed.

-----

“Hello?”

Bash woke with a start and looked around him in the small room; he was alone, dappled sunlight on the floor from the open windows, Lark’s side of the bed turned down.  He stretched and climbed from the bed, his head aching, his body sore.  He pulled on a sweatshirt and stepped into the hallway; voices spilled from the crowded upstairs kitchen, the sounds of food preparation, Lark’s voice, then Alex laughing in response. 

Bash scowled and entered the bathroom, stepping from the warm light of the hall into the pitch black and from soft white carpeting, directly into a few inches of murky ice-cold water.  He jumped back but only found more water, scrabbling for the light switch he found nothing around him but moist, cold air in the darkness.  The smell of decomposing leaves, mold, and the sea surrounded him.  Could hear nothing but the sound of his breathing in the quiet space and dripping water. There was a shaft of light ahead with no apparent source, he stepped into it and saw leaves floating in the water around his feet, and cracked cement under his soles.

“Hello?” the voice was full of terror, “Is someone fucking there? Hello?!” she yelled, “Answer me!”

“Hello? I’m here,” he managed to answer, his voice echoing in the space.  There was a sharp, surprised gasp from somewhere nearby, then a sharp knock on the door and Bash jumped out of his skin, he found himself standing in Laura’s warm, dry, well-lit basement guest bathroom complete with modern tile, heated floors, and fluffy white towels.

The knock repeated, “Bash, are you okay?” it was Laura calling through the crack.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered, voice a bit strangled.

He cleared his throat and opened the door, finding Laura’s anxious face, “You sure?” she asked.  Past her some others were gathered in the hall, peering at him with interest.

“Jesus Christ,” Lark sighed and leaned against the wall, in obvious relief, “why didn’t you answer me?” she asked, then over her shoulder she yelled, “V, forget the key, he opened the door!”

“I…” did answer? “I’m sorry,” he told her.  Alex was standing beside her, looking him over warily, and Bash looked away, “I’m fine!” he said, embarrassed.

Most of the people filed away, leaving Laura, Lark, and Alex, “You were in there for like thirty minutes at least, totally quiet, didn’t answer when we knocked, scared the fuck out of me, Vera was looking for my key, we were about to bust the door down, call 911,” Laura rambled.

“I’m sorry,” Bash said, not knowing what else to say.

“Jesus, brunch is going to be cold now,” Lark muttered with a frown, but Bash could tell she was still shaken.

“What’s going on?”  It was Dave, standing sweaty in his ridiculous Lycra bike outfit, his helmet under his arm.

“Get your Spandex encased junk out of my face!”  Lark grumped and pushed past him, earning an offended huff from Dave.  He seemed to realize attention had been drawn to his crotch and dropped his helmet down to cover himself as Laura and Alex moved past him.

Once the hall had cleared Bash glanced over the innocuous looking bathroom then went back to his room to get dressed, busying his shaking hands with digging through his bag for clothing and pretending that the cuffs of his sweatpants weren’t wet and his nose wasn’t still full of the scent of mold and swampy water.

-----

Bash dug his toes into the cold sand, seawater pushing up around the tops of his feet, he watched his feet sink in the sand and thought of the water in his dreams… visions?—no, dreams. “These fuckers are fast,” Lark yelled across the beach, pulling Bash’s attention back.  His eyes caught a dent in the sand, and he dug down quickly, easily finding a razor clam at the bottom.  He dropped it in his bucket and looked over to where Lark was floundering on her knees in the surf, drenched and covered in sand.

“That they are.”

“I am grace, embodied,” she announced, pushing her lanky pastel hair back with her wrist, “I am a goddess of the sea, I am a god-damn whisperer of mother-fucking clams,” she huffed, and sank her fist into a hole up to her armpit, coming back empty-handed.  Meanwhile, Bash plucked two from the next hole he dug “I’m feeling very attacked right now.”

“Nature is feeling very attacked right now, why don’t you slow down and work a little more quietly?”

She laughed loudly, “That’s rich coming from you.”

“I know when to be quiet… and now is when.”

“Fuckers,” she muttered, then yelled, “get in my soup!”

“Jesus, Lark, come help me instead.”

“Fine,” she huffed and splashed stubbornly across the stretch of beach between them, but then just sat her butt in the water and turned her face to the sun, not caring that her sweater was soaked.

They were quiet for a while, then Bash felt her eyes on him, “That wedding was lovely, remind me of that wedding when I plan my own.”

“Are you betrothed? —is this how you’re telling me?” he asked distractedly, rinsing a clam in the surf before dropping it into his bucket.

“You’re still gonna marry me if we’re still single by forty, right?”

“Sure, why not… do I still have to impregnate you by the age of thirty-five, though? Because I feel like I promised that before I was of legal age to consent,” he looked down at her in the sand, “You’re soaked.”

Lark’s answer was to lay back in the sand and shallow water and starfish her body.  She made purposeful eye contact as she slowly started to make sand angels with her arms and legs, pink hair floating around her.

“Dork,”  he accused her, fondly.

“It was only last month that you promised that, and I’m holding you to it, I’m not going to marry someone just because I want a baby someday, I’m a Feminist, so are you, so please knock me up as requested.”

“I know it was last month.  I was twenty-two; now I’m twenty-three and old enough to know I’m too young to promise such things.”

“I want your brilliant DNA, Bastian… please spill your seed in my womb!”  she yelled into the sky, making Bash snicker.

“What the fuck are we walking into?” Laura called from the driftwood lining the beach.  Bash looked up to see her picking her way delicately through the soggy mess left at the previous tideline. Laura wore another bikini, this one with purple 3-D flower petals covering her breasts, and a large white wide-brimmed sun hat over her curls.  Beside her, Alex offered his hand to help her climb over the driftwood.

“You’re going to lose your flip-flops,” Lark warned, watching her come towards her head. 

“Who is spilling seed?  Sounds very unsanitary while you’re digging for our dinner, “Laura said, kicking her flip-flops back towards the driftwood.

“Bash,” Lark tattled, “we have a deal that he’s gonna knock me up with his clever sperm when we’re thirty-five if I don’t have a man by then.”

"Clever Sperm, hm... jot that down as a possibility for my next album title!" Laura called to her invisible assistant, making Alex glance around confused.  “Are you charging for these services, Bastian, my love?”  Laura asked and bent down to look through his collection of razor clams.

“They aren’t doing anyone any good right now,” Bash murmured and moved closer to the water.

“How many are you licensed for?”  Alex asked.

“How many clever sperm?” Bash asked smirking at the way Alex blushed.

“Clams,” Alex answered with a roll of his eyes.

"Ah, how many clever clams,"  Bash nodded in understanding

“License, pshaw!” Lark called out.

“Pshaw, you say?” Alex asked.

“Pa-shaw I say, this is Bash you’re talking to.  Earth-child of Saddleback Island.  There is an understanding.”

“Earth-child huh? Handy to have one of those around,” Alex remarked.

“Yeah, exactly,” Bash scoffed half to himself and started filling in the holes he had dug.

“Hey, hold still,”  Alex said to Lark, then Bash watched as he crouched down.  Alex ran his fingers through Lark’s hair in the sand, as she looked up at him, fanning it around her like a pink starburst.  When he was finished he stepped over her body, his feet beside her hips, to take a photo of her with his phone, she grinned up at him, and he smiled back, “You look like a beached mermaid,”  he said lowly to her.

“Throw me back,” she replied, and Bash cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Oh, my,” Laura said, eyebrows raised, “is this is a thing?”

Bash bent to pick up his bucket, thrusting it at Laura, “Here, we have enough,” he announced, ignoring Lark and Alex’s fucking flirty photo shoot in the sand beside him.

“A few more maybe?  Mishka’s sister just came in.”

“She can have my share, I’m going home,” Bash told her shortly.

“But you just did all of this work, and now you’re not even going to have any?” Alex asked.

Bash was grateful for the sentiment, because Laura’s response was, “No, come on, you need to do another round of readings for us!  I thought we could make it a thing.”

“Readings?” Alex asked.

“Jesus, Laur, he’s not your trained monkey,” Lark scolded.

“You like doing it, Bash!” Laura informed him, “How will you get home anyway?”

“What are you holding him hostage, now?” Bash picked up his shovel and moved down a beach a few yards while Lark and Laura bickered behind him.  A few minutes later Lark moved beside him, he looked up at her and found her looking much less like a mermaid and more like a waterlogged troll doll.  She rubbed at her nose with the soaked sleeves of her sweater, which had stretched down over her hands, “Hey, you okay?” she asked.

He looked down the beach to see Alex and Laura walking along the path back towards the house, she’d left the bucket behind, just assuming he’d get more clams for her.  He sighed with the realization that he totally would.

He toed at a dimple in the sand and noted the bubbles that rose from it, “I’m fine,” he replied airily and quickly dug down to retrieve a fat juicy razor clam.

“Bullshit, you don’t have to do whatever Laura says, you know,” she scolded and took the clam from Bash’s hand.

He sighed and moved on to another nearby, “I want to go home,” he said half to himself and pulled two clams from the pit he’d just dug, handing them over to Lark.  She pulled the edge of her sweater up to hold them all.

“We barely know Mishka and Daisy,” Lark counted off on the fingers of her free hand.  Bash rolled his eyes and walked back down the beach, not up for a Larkin countdown of how they’d been used.

“We know them,” he argued.

“Enough to be invited to their super-secret, super-personal wedding?  And I mean, I don’t mean to be a bitch, obviously, I’m happy for them, but we’ve met like five times? I’m not invested… and I know perfectly well that I was only invited so you’d come and they only invited you so you’d be free entertainment.”

“Stop, your flattery is too much,” Bash deadpanned.

“Listen, I love Laura, and I know she loves us, but she is who she is, and part of who she is is a someone who is used to getting what she wants,” she continued, chasing him down the beach, “this is your livelihood, and she’s making you do it for free.”

“She’s not making me do anything, stop being dramatic,” he argued, snatching the clams back and dropping them in the bucket with the others.  He looked her over, “Come here,” he ordered and then pulled the stretched-out collar of her sweater, “are you wearing something under this?”  he asked, peering down the front.  He saw she had on a tank top and started to pull her sweater over her head.  She raised her arms for him, letting him undress her and wring her sweater out over the sand, “You’re going to get sick… you smell like dead fish,” he took off his jacket and helped her put it on while she smiled at him fondly.

“Aw, my hero,” she cooed while Bash zipped the jacket up, “What do you think of Alex?” she asked, and Bash looked up at her, noting the interest in her expression.

“I think… that he wants in your pants,” he informed her.

She grinned, “I might not mind,” she admitted with a flash of her eyebrows.

“I also think that I get weird vibes,” he told her, feeling both guilty and satisfied with how her expression dropped “and I usually trust my instincts.”

Lark frowned, “Hm,” she hummed thoughtfully, “I do too,” she admitted.  “Vibes? – he’s funny and sweet, though, and super smart.”  Bash picked up the bucket and started towards the trail.  He didn’t really want to hear about how great Alex was, but Lark just followed after him and continued, “His Aunt just passed away and left her property to him, so he’s here to deal with that, you know he went to Berkeley, he studied Psychology, and he’s…”

“Your sweater,” Bash interrupted without looking back, and Lark vanished with a squeak, presumably running back to the beach.  He turned at the top of the hill and looked back as she scrambled up after him with her wet sweater catching on the weeds.

“He’s an honest-to-God doctor,” she yelled up the hill, and Bash sighed, but held his hand out to help her up the last of the incline, “he has a practice in Seattle… with, like, other people who work under him!”  she was breathless behind him, “I wouldn’t fucking mind working under him if you know what I mean!”  she laughed and jabbed Bash in the kidney.  He didn’t respond except to swat her hand away from his back as they made their way down the path. “He took the whole summer off to come up here.  Can you imagine having the money and the job security where you just had your own business and could just hand your work off to someone else and just like, leave for months at a time?  And he’s just twenty-eight!  Twenty-eight!  Twenty-fucking-eight!”

Bash grunted in response if only to make her stop saying the words twenty-eight.

“Why the fuck are you speed walking?” she huffed behind him and he realized he was, in fact, practically running through the woods towards the house. 

He glanced down at the poor clams being concussed as they slammed around in the sloshing bucket and slowed his pace, “I’m tired, I had fucked up dreams last night.”

“Ooh, like dreams or like dream-dreams?”

“I don’t know, the latter kind I think,” he admitted, and she grew quiet behind him, he stopped abruptly, and she moved by his side, waiting patiently for him to continue speaking. Bash looked around the forest, the constant hum of life around him, the trees reaching far above his head, the smell of sap, decomposition, and sea in his nose, “I’ve been having more… like when I’m awake too,” he fumbled, but he knew she knew what he was referring to.

“More than usual?”  she asked carefully.

“Yeah, and they aren’t the fun kinds either.”

“Okay… it’s been a while since that happened, right?”

He breathed in and then sighed, “It’s fine,” he said with a shrug, and she wrinkled her nose, not believing him. "Would you mind calling... like calling Mike? See if they have any reports of people missing?  --a girl maybe?" Bash asked carefully.

"A girl? Wow, okay, yeah, sure."

"I'd call myself, but you know how he is with me," Lark rolled her eyes, in understanding. "Low-key, okay? Don't... find an excuse for why you're asking, yeah?"

"Yeah, sure, I can do that Bash."

He nodded and grasped her hand, pulling her towards the house, “It’s fine,” he said again with a laugh, and she was kind enough to smile at him and squeeze his hand, letting the issue go.

-----

At the house he dumped the bucket in the sink and left the shucking to the crew already assembled there around Vera, “Tomato Seafood Bisque,” she announced.

“Not chowder?”  Bash frowned.

“Lena brought crab,” Vera explained, and Bash ran his eyes over the crowd until he found someone new, a woman similar in looks to Mishka who held up a glass of red wine as an introduction.  The sound of Laura’s piano coming to life caught Bash’s attention, and he stepped back to see Alex sitting at the bench, long fingers sliding over the keys.  Lark was practically draped over the top of the piano, still sandy and wet, while she flirted with him.

Bash scoffed and turned back to Laura, “I want to leave soon.”

“Ugh, boring,” Laura sighed.

“I need a ride, Laur,” he hated begging.

“I could give you a ride,” he heard and realized the piano was silent, Bash stepped back to look to Alex and Lark again.

“What?”

“I’m leaving soon, too,” Alex said brightly, “Lark said you live near the preserve, so do I.”

“You’re leaving?” Lark said sadly.

Bash scowled, “Yeah, I’m at the south end, you’re at the north though, so…” he explained, Alex raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Still closer than me, so that sounds like a plan,” Laura agreed and handed Bash a glass of red wine before indiscreetly adjusting her bikini top using the window as a mirror.

“There’s no way Bastian is leaving without a good share of that Bisque though, he worked his ass off on that beach,” Alex declared helpfully, and Bash took a generous pull from his wine.

-----

Bash gazed longingly at Lark, who stood to watch him from Laura’s doorway.  He curled himself in the front passenger seat of Alex’s tiny electric car, his feet were crowded with his bag between them, and he hugged his warm container of bisque to his chest while Alex rounded his car to climb in beside him. 

When he turned it on, the radio blared, making them both flinch, Alex rushed to turn it down and apologized quietly as they pulled down the driveway.

They didn’t speak for a long while, the small car moving down the tree-lined winding roads soundless except for Death Cab for Cutie playing quietly in the background.  Bash was starting to doze off when Alex’s voice startled him out of the silence, “How’d you know where my place was?”

Bash ran his hand over his face and stretched awake, “Odom.  Your aunt knew my grandmother,” he told him without looking away from the window.

“Oh,” they were quiet again, then, “did you know her, my aunt?”

Bash shrugged, “Yes, I knew her.”

Alex hummed thoughtfully, “Surprised we never met.”

Bash shrugged, “I wasn’t around for a while, I moved away when I was six, came back when I was eighteen.  When I did manage to come, I just visited her… and Larkin but didn’t go around town much.”

“So, basically, the opposite of me.  I wonder if I ever met your grandma, what’s her name?”

“Berta, Berta Holt,” Bash said, finally looking to Alex.

Alex frowned, “I don’t know, maybe.”  He was quiet again, just long enough for Bash to settle into the silence, “She was a crazy old thing,” he said abruptly, making Bash stare at him. 

Alex quickly amended, “I mean, my aunt, like… a quirky type… superstitious, I guess,” 

"Crazy?  Aren't you a mental health professional?" Bash asked.

Alex flushed, "Fuck, sorry, you're right, that was..." he stopped, signaled, and moved his car over a lane before speaking again, "I meant, like… just different.  She was my dad's aunt, actually, but she had no kids, my mom used to make me go over all of the time, all the way up through when I was a teenager. I mean she was nice, and everything, but she used to do all of this kind of hippy natural stuff… make her own medicine and like read tea leaves,” he laughed, and Bash turned to look back out the window.

Alex’s laughter faded, and he coughed uncomfortably, “Like I said, super sweet woman, just… you know the type, backwoods… too much time alone.”  There was a long pause, and Bash cringed at the awkwardness, Alex just wouldn’t stop trying. “There’s this deer that is always on her property, I thought it was just coincidence when I saw it there but it’s literally always there, it comes onto the porch and everything, I think she might have tamed it, poor thing.”

Bash was silent, watching farmland out the passenger side window, “Mind if we stop in Eastsound? If I’m going by the cabin, I might as well drop off some supplies,” Alex asked.

“Going by the cabin?”

“I’m technically staying at the B&B here in town,” Alex explained, “it has a kitchenette, and...”

Bash interrupted, “I thought you said you were staying at your aunt’s.”

Alex hesitated, “No, just working there, getting it cleaned out and fixed up to sell.”

Selling the Odom place?  “It’s another twenty minutes from Eastsound to my place,” Bash explained, confused.

“I don’t mind, I can go to her cabin on the way home, maybe I’ll even get a little work done,” he shrugged. “I have my overnight bag, so maybe I’ll stay there tonight, rough it out there with the wild things.” He laughed again, “it’s this cute, little dumpy cabin, have you seen it? Runs on a generator if you want electricity, otherwise, nothing but wood stove for heat, the place is packed with crazy books and herbs and shit, it’s a trip.”

Bash turned back out his window, feeling self-conscious, and Alex sighed after a moment, apparently frustrated by Bash’s lack of response. “You need to stop anywhere?”

“No.”

“O-kay, then.”

Bash stayed in the car while Alex went into the store.  When he came out, he tried in vain to fit everything in his tiny trunk, then, in the end, Bash was left holding groceries, “I’ll… just drop them by my room, I’m sorry,” Alex muttered miserably.   Again, Bash sat in the car, not even offering to help carry things up.  He considered climbing out of the car and finding his own way home, instead, he texted Larkin that he hated everything about life and that this was super awkward and he needed someone to be punished for it. Larkin responded by sending about fifteen random emojis just as Alex reappeared looking flustered.

They continued on their journey, passing the road that Bash knew Alex’s aunt’s home was located down, and around the inside edge of the preserve.  Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel as the side road leading to his driveway showed itself, “You can drop me at the end of my drive,” he suggested.

“What? No way, door to door service!” Alex said happily.

“Seriously, my driveway is a mud pit, your car will get stuck.”

“It’ll be fine, this thing does better than you’d think.”

“No, really, I’d like to walk the rest of the way, here, this is mine, just…”Alex smiled and pulled into the driveway and continued on regardless, “Alex, stop the car.”

“Oh, you do know my name!” he teased.

“What?” Bash snapped at him, annoyed.

The car slowed as it broke through the trees to the clearing, revealing Bash’s small cabin, the climbing roses up the side of the chimney, the moss on the roof, the muddy driveway, the garden, and the coop of chickens, “Oh,” Alex said quietly.

“Yeah. Backwoods, cute, little dumpy cabin, generator, wood stove for heat, it’s a trip,” Bash repeated flatly, “So I do know the type.”

“It’s… nice,” Alex attempted, but Bash had already opened the door.

“Thanks for the ride,” Bash muttered and climbed out, taking his bag with him.

Alex pulled away by the time Bash made it to his porch.  Poe cawed at him from the rafters, “Hey, Poe-Poe, want to come in?”  Bash pressed his palm in the center of the blue painted eye on his door and pushed it open, a blur of black fur sped by his ankles as Walter escaped from the house for the first time in two days. 

Bash pushed aside the tapestry, letting Poe fly past him, and was hit by the earthy herbal smell of his home, it was something his nose grew used to and always came as a surprise when he was gone for long enough for it to become new again. He looked around his home, the herbs drying as they hung from the rafters, his piles of books, the objects he and his grandmother had collected covering the surfaces, the crystals on the window sill that cast rainbows around the room, the off feeling radiating from his back bedroom from that situation he still needed to figure out.  Quirky. Crazy. Back-woods. Superstitious.

He took his overnight bag and dumped his laundry in his hamper, then carried his Cards Against Humanity set and returned it to his shelf.  On instinct, he opened the box that held his tarot cards.  There they sat, peeking out from the black velvet that encased them. 

“Hey, you’re back,” he said to them and tucked the velvet cloth over the exposed corner and closed the box again, “I am too,” he told them.

There was a ruckus outside as his hens fluttered about, outside the kitchen window, probably either harassed by Walter or just excited for the chance at food. Bash bent down to retrieve his egg basket from the kitchen table, “I’m coming ladies, don’t get your feathers in a knot!” he called and turned to go back outside. 

He carried with him jar he’d filled with the ash from the solstice bonfire and brought home nestled with his dirty clothes.  Over the next month or so, he’d mix it in the feed, scatter it in his garden, in the woods near his home where he hunted and foraged, in his favorite crabbing spot, just like he’d quietly scattered it around Laura’s property. Ashes from a solstice fire are protective, and help guarantee a good harvest, plenty of crab, healthy hens… superstition be damned, it just felt right.

He knew it was right.