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We see the town of Kepler, West Virginia stirring to wakefulness on a morning in early April. Trees are budding and the wildflowers are starting to bloom along the river, but at Amnesty Lodge there are still patches of snow clinging to the cracked feet of the archway where the shadows circle.
We see Aubrey lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Aubrey is definitely NOT a morning person. She hates mornings almost as much as she loves staying up late. Aubrey likes staying up late late. She loves it when the night owls have gone to bed and the morning birds aren’t awake yet, in the quiet hour that feels like it’s only hers.
Aubrey gives her heart easily. Sometimes she feels this giving like a wound, sometimes like a gift. She loves easily, but rarely completely. Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD is an exception to that, obviously. He’s sleeping at the foot of her bed now, twitching, but 100 percent still asleep, like Aubrey wishes she was.
We see Aubrey roll over and study Dani, whose slow, deep breaths show that, like Dr. Harris Bonkers, PhD, she is also still asleep. Aubrey watches Dani’s gold hair light up like a halo in the morning sun, and traces a finger down her cheek. She feels like her heart belongs to Dani. She hopes that it does. But there’s a corner of it that still beats wild and yearning. Aubrey’s been feeling a familiar itch lately, to pack up and leave. We see her slip out of bed and lace up her Doc Martens.
As we travel down to Riverside, the city begins to wake. A few cars pull out of driveways, headed to early morning swim practice at the high school. Dog walkers appear, taking advantage of the sunny morning to shed their winter coats.
We see Duck, staring out the back window of his apartment toward the grass where he used to practice with Beacon. He feels unsure of himself. Unlike Aubrey, this is not a natural condition for Duck. He’s a man with a lot of inertia, the kind that was hard to escape even when he was eighteen. His life felt like it belonged in Kepler then, and the intervening years have only added layers of sediment. He used to think that he was the river, putting down layers of silt, building up a life here. But lately he feels like maybe he’s trapped in those layers, that he’s turning into a fossil in his own life. Quiet feet on the floor and then strong arms wrap around him, making him jump.
“Minnie,” he says. “Sweet Jesus, don’t scare me like that.”
“You did not hear me coming, Wayne? I fear you will not be long for this world if you cannot even hear me crossing the living room.” She grins. She’s been doing that more lately, as she settles into life in Kepler. She’s wearing a huge t-shirt with the logo of Darylll's CrossFit and Bait emblazoned across the chest. Earlier this year she talked Duck into running a 5k, which was the first time he’d ever run that far without the cops or an Abomination chasing him. He cursed under his breath the whole race, but isn’t that why he loves her? Minerva helps him fight the inertia.
He turns away from the window and pulls her into his arms, taking in her scent of laundry soap and sandalwood. His mind jumps to a random evening two years ago, when Minerva was still a projection. She appeared a minute later than usual that night, her silhouette a flash of blue against the darkening room. He hadn’t realized that he was looking for her until he felt a rush of relief of knowing that she hadn’t abandoned him. He didn’t know then why he was worried, but now he does.
He’s Duck. He doesn’t need adventure to be happy.
A few minutes later, we see Duck grab his skateboard and head out.
We move further down Riverside, to the Cryptonomica, shuttered and locked against the daylight. We see Ned standing at the kitchen counter, his reading glasses dangling on their chain as he butters toast and stares out the window. He is also not alone, although he lacks the same sort of companionship as either Aubrey or Duck.
“Pizza? Duck?” Billy asks.
“No Billy, no sugar for me,” Ned responds. “Doctor’s orders, remember?”
Billy hands him a cup of black coffee then goes to sit at the table. Ned and Billy have worked their way through all of Ryan Gosling’s filmography, and although Billy’s vocabulary has never expanded, he’s a good mimic in other ways. It’s eerie watching him eating cornflakes. It makes Ned feel like he’s seen this before.
It doesn’t matter that Billy never talks; Ned talks enough for the both of them. But this morning Ned’s eating his toast in silence, watching green shoots of grass push their way out of the cracks in the parking lot pavement. He should call someone about repaving and repainting. He’s been working on a new exhibit for the summertime crowds and he needs to get some more display stands. He… He sighs. His fingers twitch. It’s never good when Ned’s finger’s twitch. ‘Idle hands are the Devil’s tools’ is a saying that has turned out to be true a hundred times over in his life. He swipes the keys off their ring over the counter. “I shall return anon,” he tells Billy as he slams the door behind him.
Aubrey looks up at the sound of footsteps and cursing.
“Shit, didn’t expect it to be quite so slippery.” Duck is clinging to a tree with one hand, the other holding his skateboard. He skids down the snowy slope into the clearing, where Aubrey sits cross-legged on a boulder near the remains of the arch, her face turned up to catch the sun.
“Dani says the snow always stays longest in the clearing,” Aubrey says.
“How is Dani doin’? You guys here for long?”
“Good, good. No, just a quick trip for our anniversary. How’s Minerva?”
“Just fine.” Duck scratches the back of his head.
“First comes love, then comes being just fine?”
“Alright, alright. First of all, you know that words aren’t really my thing. And second of all, I don’t see why it’s your business.”
“Everything is my business Duck, especially the love lives of my fellow monster hunters. What if one of us is distracted by passion and the other one gets eaten?”
“Well sure, if we were actually hunting monsters...” He’s never been a match for Aubrey’s words. He’s not sure how to say the next part. “You know, it’s not like I miss the mortal peril and whatnot, but sometimes I...” Duck trails off. “It’s stupid, nevermind.”
“It’s not stupid.” Aubrey pats the boulder next to her. “It’s like, how can you hate something and love it at the same time?” Her hair is a color that Duck’s never seen before, blue and purple bleeding into each other. He likes it. That boulder looks big enough for the both of them and he goes and sits on its warm surface, his boots squishing on the wet grass. He should get to work. Juno will be wondering where he is soon. He doesn’t move.
If Duck’s entrance was loud, Ned’s is downright deafening.
“I brought donuts,” he says, holding up a bag from Jolly Pirate’s. He’s panting a little bit and his face is red. He decided to park up at Amnesty Lodge and walk the rest of the way here, for his heart, but now he thinks that dragging himself through the woods is going to give him a heart attack.
Duck closes his eyes and Aubrey squeezes Duck’s arm before she lies back to soak in more sunshine.
“Donuts!” says Ned, shaking the bag in front of Duck. Duck opens his eyes, but it’s just to check on the buzzing of his phone, which he silences.
“Manna from heaven!” Ned continues, with a sinking feeling that he’s done this before. “I got fritters…” he trails off and sighs.
Ned has just remembered that he’s a ghost.
This fact won’t seem to stick in his mind. It’s so easy, it turns out, to keep on living your life, even when your life is done with you. He’ll goes whole days thinking he’s running the Cryptonomica and then suddenly someone will walk through him, physically through him, and he’ll remember--none of this belongs to him anymore.
Not the Cryptonomica. Not the sunshine or the donuts or the friendship.
“Hey Duck?” Aubrey sits up, smudging her eyeliner as rubs her eyes and peers into the woods around them. Her eyes stutter over the space where Ned is and for a moment he feels hopeful, but then she stretches and yawns. Ned sighs and squeezes between the two of them. Maybe he’ll give them a chill. That would be something.
“What?” Duck opens one eye at Aubrey’s question.
“Nevermind.” Aubrey isn’t sure what she felt just now. “Hey, it’s your turn to say something this year.”
“Nope.”
“C’mon, Duck. I did it last year.”
“Don’t see why we have to keep doing this.”
Aubrey smacks him on the shoulder. “Sit up, show some respect for the dead.”
Duck groans and sits up, putting his hat back on. He stands, turning to face Aubrey and the remains of the gate. Ned gives him a wave, but Duck’s eyes slide right over him. Ned looks for the bag of donuts but they’ve disappeared, another incorporeal fantasy. Like him.
“Well, Ned wasn’t a great man. Or even a good man. And he wasn’t particularly loyal.”
“Hey!” Ned shouts at the same time that Aubrey cuts Duck off.
“Okay, this was a huge mistake,” Aubrey says. “Also, I’m telling Dani that you definitely aren’t allowed to speak at my funeral.”
“You asked, so this is what you’re gettin’. Sit back down. I’m almost done.” Duck clears his throat and starts again.
“Ned wasn’t a good or great or loyal man. But he was ours. And in the end, when it really mattered, he did the right thing. And made it as fucking dramatic as he possibly could. Got himself a fucking statue.” Ned has seen the statue. He thinks Mama could have been a little kinder about his gut, but he likes the way his scarf is blowing back in the breeze.
“Anyway,” Duck continues, “he was part of the Pine Guard. And he died fighting for what he believed in. That’s got to count for something. To Ned.” He tips his hat, directly towards Ned although there is no way he can know this, then sits next to Aubrey, squarely in Ned’s lap. Ned scoots over and puts an arm over Duck’s shoulder. It goes right through him.
For a few moments only the sounds of birdsong echo through the clearing.
Duck clears his throat. “Heard Stern telling Barclay the other day that there’s been chatter about the Shenandoah valley, over in Virginia.”
“What kind of chatter?”
“Just...talk. Something big over that way, scaring hikers. Found a couple of RVs ripped out and burned the other day.”
“But there’s nothing coming through the gate.” Aubrey’s protest sounds weak, even to her ears.
“Sure,” Duck says. “Sure.” There’s another moment of silence.
“But maybe…” Aubrey says. “Maybe someone should check it out. Just, you know, in case. Do you think we should tell Mama?”
Duck stands suddenly, moving with real energy. “I think if we’re just poking around, shouldn’t be anything we can’t handle ourselves. Well, and we’ll bring Minerva.” He looks over to see if Aubrey is okay with this and she nods vigorously.
“She’s worth two of you.”
“Hey!”
“Do you wanna bring Stern or Barclay as backup?”
“Nah, they’ve been next to useless since they got engaged. Lots of starin’ in each others’ eyes and shit. Our bar trivia team’s gone straight to hell.”
“What was your team name again?” Aubrey scrunches up her face trying to remember. “‘Duck was right, it was aliens all along’? Kind’ve of a mouthful if you ask me.”
“Fuck, yeah. My team, my name. But we’re getting distracted. You in, Little? You got my back?”
“Let’s go get some monsters,” Aubrey says, bouncing to her feet and heading for the path. Duck grabs his skateboard and pauses, a prickle running along his shoulders. He glances back towards the boulder, but then shakes his head and walks towards Amnesty Lodge.
Ned sits alone on the boulder, watching his friends’ forms retreat up the path. Aubrey is skipping. Duck is making his slow, heavy way.
There’s another rustle in the bushes, but Ned doesn’t turn until he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder. It belongs to Mama. Another figment of his already fuzzy imagination, he’s sure.
“Ned Chicane,” she says. “Thought I might find you around here.” Ned doesn’t say anything. Sometimes the figments talk. That doesn’t make them real. Together they watch Aubrey and Duck round a bend on the path.
Then Mama claps her hands, loud enough that a few birds take flight. “Enough,” she says gently. “I don’t gotta lot of power. Never was my thing. But I can help you pass on, if that’s what you want. There’s plenty of people waiting for you.”
The trees in front of Ned blur and he thinks he half-glimpses distant figures. When Ned thinks about all the people he’s wronged in this life, he’s sure there’s a lot of folks who won’t be thrilled to see him in the next. But the figures he half-glimpses through the trees don’t feel like they’re there to exact revenge or remind him of his misdeeds. They seem like old friends whose names would return to him, if only he let himself go.
Ned sighs and rubs his face. It hurts, to be half here. He’s tired now, more tired than he thought possible. It wouldn’t be so bad to cross over now, in the sunshine with the birds and the trees and someone he trusts.
“But Duck, Aubrey, everyone--” he protests.
“There’s those of us who’ll keep our eyes on them. You’ve done your part Ned.”
“I’d like--” Ned hesitates. “I’d like to go.” Mama nods and moves closer to Ned. He holds up his hands. “But….” Mama sighs. “But I feel like they might need me. One last time. Can you make me...a little more corporeal? Just for a few days? Then I swear I’ll be on my way.”
“I’m not one of your easy marks. I don’t believe you, Ned Chicane.” Mama shakes her head but after a long minute of consideration she does something with her hands and presses them on Ned’s chest. He feels a sudden weight tugging him down, like gravity returning at the top of an elevator.
“Should last you about three days,” Mama says. “Then I need you back here. Y’hear?” But Ned is already crunching and slipping up the path to Amnesty Lodge, chasing his friends in the bright morning air.
We see Mama in the center of the clearing, staring at the broken gateway with an unreadable expression.
We see breakfast in full swing at Amnesty Lodge. Dani reads a note on her bedside table and rolls her eyes. Barclay is making pancakes and Stern is complaining that the crossword is wrong, not him.
We see a car heading east. Aubrey, Duck, and Minerva have the windows down. Duck is driving. They are just past the outskirts of town when the car swerves to the side of the road and screeches to a halt.
Our last glimpse is of three figures, one a little more see-through than the others, in an embrace on the side of the road on a beautiful spring morning in Kepler, West Virginia.