Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The light knocking on the front door growing steadily more demanding, Lena made her way down the hallway, trying to banish the darkness which had been sitting in her thoughts throughout her long morning and past the afternoon. She would have to come clean, eventually and soon, it was only fair to both her husband and herself. Even if it tore them apart, she couldn't permit herself to cling to the vestiges of a heat-struck child's summer fantasy. 

She cleared her throat many times, though knew her voice could never be satisfactorily smooth, given both age and her heart's upheaval. Still, a woman had to be proper, and whoever was calling deserved a polite greeting. 

Gripping the door handle, she reversed the wheels of her chair and slowly revealed her visitor: a freckled, redheaded boy, all limbs and no more than twelve years old, his face awkward with apology.

"Cuno's sorry he took your locusts for Night City," came the glum burr, the child keeping eye contact for mere moments before looking off at the doorframe.

"Cuno?" Through the haze of emotional exhaustion, the name returned to her, muttered by Gary in her echoic memory. "Oh my, you're-- you're from Martinaise, aren't you?" Trepidation sat down heavily in her chest at the boy's reputation, but for now he seemed without ill-intentions, and Lena had always believed that people should be most judged by their present selves.

"I am," he confirmed, chewing on his lower lip as he examined the frayed edges of the door mat. "Capeside's. Cuno saw where you were staying, underground with the crabby fuck--" Hearing himself, he winced, tightened his fists at his sides. 

Lena smiled gently, observing a child used to snarling his way through a fraught existence, now grasping at civility. "That's all right, sweetie. Gary's had a lot worse levelled at him, and not without cause."

Grateful for the mercy, he raised his eyes, a thought coming to mind: "If Cuno was in charge, he'd've built a proper ramp, like. How's a person supposed to get up and down that pit when yer stuck on wheels?" Couched in annoyance, his concern at what he had seen was genuine.

"It was a bit of an affair, I'll admit. There was only space for one person to descend, so I had to be eased from below, step by step."

"Fuckin' tragic, if you ask Cuno," he glowered at the floor. "Folks got no interest when they're doing fine themselves. Just carryin' on like everyone's riding the exact same train tracks. But for some of us, the train's on fucking fire."

It had been a while since anyone had gotten so riled up on her behalf -- particularly over something she had made peace with, in the twenty years since the accident -- and it was some moments before she realised how long they had lingered in the doorway.

"Oh goodness, I'm forgetting myself: won't you come inside? And however did you get all the way here? Just to apologise for stealing from my foolish insect traps..."

Shaking off the disappointment the thought caused, she reversed, giving the boy time to scuff his shoes clean on the mat and step gingerly inside.

"Truth is, I had an escort. Right fancy one, it was."

"Oh, did you?" 

"Police escort," the boy emphasised, and behind him, the light from outside was blocked by the solid silhouette of a man. 

He was washed, nominally combed and cleanly dressed, but Lena recognised him easily, from her time at the Whirling-in-Rags: the stunned fox who had taken an unexpected interest in cryptozoology, despite having lost much of his grip on reality -- or perhaps, she was forced to admit, because of it.

"Officer...?" she waited, realising she still did not know his name, and wondering if he did, at last.

"Detective Harry Du Bois, ma'am," his rasping voice offered, as he dipped his head. "My apologies for dropping by unannounced." As he straightened up, the hallway lights glinted off an item at his neck.

"The Eight-Eyed Teratorn," she murmured, fingertips unconsciously brushing the deep dip of her own throat. She met the man's eyes, which were bloodshot and exhausted, but undeniably sober. More than that: something sparkled in their depths, something which felt almost unnervingly familiar. "Pleased to meet you at last, Detective," she smiled, its shape more wan than she would have liked. "It's... very good to see you again. And kind of you to drive Cuno all the way here."

Summoned by his name, the spindly boy appeared again, past the officer's trench-coated bulk. "It wasn't just for Cuno," he explained -- and it was there too, in his voice and his eyes: the sparkle of excitement. "Big man here's got something huge to tell ya. Fantastical, larger than life thing, and I saw it too! Saw it with these eyes, so he's not making it up. Cross Cuno's heart and hope to die, I wasn't riding the lightning or anythin', broad fucking daylight it was!" 

The officer's hand laid on his shoulder, its weight evidently calming to the boy's habitually surging spirit.

"Aye, pig, it's your story to tell, Cuno's gonna grant you the floor, like."

"The floor?" Lena asked, still confused and fighting back excitement, spurred on by the urgency which flowed from her visitors. Quickly, her sense of propriety took over, and provided an opportunity to gather herself. "Gentleman, whatever it is you need to tell me, let's do it in the proper setting? It feels quite inappropriate to keep chatting with the front door wide open and all of Jamrock staring in."

Obediently, the detective closed and latched the door. "You're right, it's best we're all sitting down for this." He flashed a grin under his moustache, and Lena's hand went to her chest; was it the ruined man's charm, or her own keening anticipation?

She led them down the hall and into the living room, just in time for her husband to appear, fresh from the kitchen with his dinner on a plate. He scowled and grunted, but that was his normal reaction to suddenly encountering other people, and Lena raised a hand to soothe him from a distance.

"Look who's dropped by, darling, isn't it a nice surprise?"

"I'd have liked a little warning, to be honest." He laid his plate on a sideboard and forced his face into something more neutral. "Evening officer. Are we being investigated? Since you've come directly to our home."

"Oh no, dear," Lena chuckled, "I gave him our address before we left. He wanted to be able to contact me, after he went to--" Her chest cinched and she gave herself a moment before continuing. "After he went to check the phasmid traps, one last time. I told him there was little point in it, but he was ever so insistent." She sighed, turning back to the officer. "I'm very sorry you had to be back in those cold reeds, for the sake of an old woman's delusion."

"Lena..." came Morell's chiding sigh. "Don't say it like that. It was a setback, but as soon as I'm over this bloody cough--"

She shook her head, many brief times, and stared into her lap, conveying that the issue needed to be dropped.

"Aye, cheer up, granny," Cuno piped in, flopping onto the couch with a bounce. "Shit's gonna be roses, you'll see." He straightened up, alert as a mongoose as he watched his much slower escort take a seat.

"That's dear of you to say, Cuno," she accepted, trying as much as she could to harness her unstable emotions and project the kindness her visitors had earned.

"It's true," the detective began, his teeth again visible as his lips widened, "me and the kid are about to rock your world."

"What?"

Despite saying he would give over the floor, the boy could not restrain himself. "Wait! I need to set the scene! Um... from where, though?" His voice dropped to a whisper as he contemplated. "The boat? Nah, that's too late, not enough build-up. Maybe when we found the string in the bird's room... or when Pig woke up and I was standin' there... No. No, Cuno's got it!"

A smile tugged at Lena's lips: though the child's young nervous system was locked into perpetual mania, he was nonetheless full of empathy, in that way that the children worst treated by the world often were.

After a deep breath (most likely for drama), Cuno began a tale which soon became terrifyingly violent, observed from behind the broken wooden slats of an abandoned building. At times, Lena wanted to cover her ears and wish for it to end, while hushed profanities came frequently from her husband, now seated on the opposite couch, leaning forward upon stiffened elbows atop his rigid knees.

"Your partner--" she started, when Cuno described the mercenary's shot from behind, but the boy cut her off.

"No trouble, our man's in the hospital, gonna be right as rain soon, don't even fret about it." Though he still glanced at the detective for confirmation, and received a stoic nod in reply.

"Oh thank goodness!"

"All goes well, he'll be discharged tomorrow morning," Harry Du Bois told her. 

"I'm relieved to hear that, Detective. He really has such a warm heart, even if he doesn't..."

No, now was not the time to hope out loud that the Lieutenant would spare a little credence for things he didn't understand, rather than rejecting her 'stories' out of hand. Perhaps she would be able to see him again soon for herself, if only to offer some entertainment to the prim and resolute man.

"Hey now," Cuno interrupted, "hold on with that huggy shit, we're about to get to the best part: the entrance of Detective Cuno!"

"Pending recruit, De Ruyter," came the firm correction.

"Sure sure, however you want, Pig."

Though the term of address was entirely inappropriate, Lena saw in it a great deal of affection; the boy couldn't manage a more familial word, but it was there, in his chest, waiting for another day.

Then (as though she had any idea at all about the relevant investigation) Cuno detailed their breakthrough, and how the detective had borrowed a skiff from the fishing village, the two of them reuniting on the island in the middle of the bay -- once a fortress, now a place of ruined military paraphernalia and ever-encroaching nature. 

Unexpectedly, Morell spoke up: "That bloody island. So many reeds ringing it, higher than anywhere else. If I could just get enough gear over there--"

"Hold your horses, grandad," Cuno insisted, "Cuno's getting to it! Shit..." He sighed into his lap. "No one's got any patience anymore." 

A small flame smouldered in Lena's chest, and she dared not foster it; yet it grew nonetheless, spreading throughout her body, even where sensation seldom did.

"So there we were, holed up in this rusty bunker, and I told old Pig to take a nap, while I scoped out the place. Cos he's fucking bleeding all over like, gonna fall down in a hot sec, if Doctor Cuno didn't get him off his feet."

An embarrassed snort and a nod from the detective. "Boy's not wrong. Probably wouldn't have made it much further without him bullying me horizontal."

"Damn straight you wouldn't," Cuno nodded in satisfaction. "Keeping your banged up arse intact I was." 

Back into the thick of memory, he locked eyes with her, and did his best to ramp up the tension even more.

It was working. So well that it frightened her.

"There's this huge metal door, right, and we get it open, finding oursels back on the coast, and," he raised his palms expressively, "aaaall about us there's these tall reeds. Then, smack in the middle, right there on the ground, there's this ancient army geezer, half-zombie, just leaning on his rifle by a burnt-out campfire."

Lena didn't care about this character, however important he might be. All she could hear was 'reeds... reeds... reeds...'.

As if sensing her thoughts, the detective put a solid hand to the boy's raised arm, slowly brought it to his side. "She doesn't need all that, kid."

Though momentarily disappointed, Cuno nodded, and resettled himself on the couch. "So then maybe it's your turn? Cuno's gonna give you the final honours."

From out of sight, Morell coughed, but Lena knew it wasn't illness making his throat close up, because hers was doing the same.

Far less interested in theatricality than his young ward, Detective Du Bois laid earnest eyes on Lena's tightly clasped hands, where they rested in her lap, then gradually travelled up her arms.

"There was nothing to see, but then I heard it: a hissing through reeds. Like breath, from something invisible." His gaze reached her face, and his lopsided grin would not be restrained. "It looked just like you described it. Antennae to toes."

The air seized in her lungs, a hand gone to her chest to clutch at fabric. 

The room was waiting, at the mercy of the detective's moustache-fringed glee. 

"It was... beautiful. Taller than any living creature I've ever seen, and impossibly fragile. Legs like porcelain. Swaying as it stared at me."

In Lena's peripheral vision, Cuno was vibrating with the effort of containing himself, and the couch creaked beneath Morell's body, as he shifted as far forward as he could. For her part, Lena could barely breathe, let alone talk.

"It was intelligent," the detective continued. "Lena. It spoke to me."

At that, her husband could not stay silent. "It what! You're not--"

"I am not fucking with you, sir, I can promise you that. This extraordinary creature, it got right in my head," he tapped at his temple, hidden behind thick sideburns. "And it sounded like a woman. Like a young girl, so soft... so gentle. And, in a way, playful."

"It were frothin' at the mouth, though!" Cuno erupted. "Thought it might take a bite out of us, but then our boss here just kept chatting with it, all conversational. Asking the deep questions, like 'what's the meaning of life?' and 'what's the future of humanity?'. Just wild, big-brained shit!"

Lena found her voice, though it sounded like sand paper to her astounded ears. "It understood higher concepts? More than just... food and shelter?"

"It did share its love of sweets with us, but it's like the boy says: it's at least as intelligent as a human, and probably a lot more, in my case. It described the world from its particular perspective, and it remembered back for centuries."

"Centuries?" Lena breathed.

"I knew it," Morell huffed, full of victory. "Concealed for hundreds of years! Right under everyone's noses?"

Du Bois nodded. "It said it goes all along the coast. Sometimes exactly where your traps were set up."

"But they were useless," Lena sighed, silvery pleasure slipping in. "There was no way it'd fit."

"No way in this mad world," the detective confirmed. "You'd have had better luck catching me in one of those things."

"Or me!" the boy laughed, bathing in the intensity of the room. "Reckon I like locusts a lot more too!"

"No interest in the locusts, eh?" muttered Morell. "Interesting."

Lena whispered something, half to herself, then found both visitors' eyes upon her. Self-consciously, she regarded her lap, her newly re-clasped hands, which shook so much that she had to dig her nails in to reasonably stabilise them.

"Could you," she repeated, unable to keep her voice from cracking, "could you... say its name? I'd like to hear it out loud. Because this all... none of it feels quite real. I'm afraid I'm going to slip into a dream and it'll all be..."

She saw Cuno's legs shifting restlessly, his body leaning towards Harry Du Bois until he received the deep hum of approval he was waiting for. Then, the boy spilled onto the carpet, lowered himself until he could catch her dipped gaze, his eyes alight with boundless wonder.

"We saw it, granny. Pig and me saw it with our own eyes. It's real: your Insulindian Phasmid is real."

Chapter Text

At eleven p.m. sharp, she had left the Whirling-in-Rags. 

She'd had to. Not that the manager would have rushed her out when the kitchen closed, despite not renting a room there. But to stay longer – as all but the passed out drunks drained from the room, through the cracked grouting of the night and into the street – would make her feel pitiful. It was bad enough feeling old and isolated, without being pitiful as well.

Eleven o'clock, and the temperature was already hovering at zero degrees celsius — the condensation on the inside of the Whirling's windows warned of it, and the sharp twinge of arthritis through her bony hands confirmed it, as the automatic doors pulled frigid air into the Whirling's warmly lit throat. 

Behind the partial shield of her spectacles, the membranes of her eyes became instantly wet with shock. She blinked, blinked in determination against the cold and loneliness, and tapped the accelerator stick on her wheelchair's right arm. It was good that her carriage was gas-powered, because the days were long gone when her arms could have managed alone the war-pitted streets of Martinaise.

Sometimes, when she observed her arms without sleeves, bent at their sharp elbows, tendons arched as she levered herself down into the chair... she saw the Phasmid again. Just like all those decades ago: limbs pale and porcelain, seeming unconscionably fragile; swaying, despite how near to nothing its body must weigh. 

It was an eerie experience: living long enough, to become a dull human equivalent of that miraculous design. In places, her skin was so thin upon bone, it may as well have been chitin. 

If only her limbs could balance like a ghost upon marsh waters. If only she could skim away into the reeds, leaving barely a ripple behind.

Rolling across the mosaicked plaza, she kept the jagged concrete fissure on her left, until it joined a crater between two public benches and she was faced with a branching decision: directly ahead, eight shallow stairs down awaited her, slightly more than double the width of her chair and with metal tube handrails that seemed more ornamental than functional, in height; a little further on, past the mailbox and between the bookstore's outdoor displays, were seven steeper, much narrower steps - an extremely tight fit for her chair - with the slight benefit of raised stone on either side, should she need something to grip — or, more likely, cling onto. 

Either way, it would be stairs, the natural enemy of wheeled vehicles. Either choice would be hazardous, and even more so on her own, with no one there to grab the chair handles and prevent catastrophe.

While she continued to appraise the ground at the end of both descents, the coastal temperature dropped another degree, the ceaseless brushing of waves against concrete making her feel colder still, as she imagined her chair moving too quickly towards the guardrail, at the foot of the bookstore stairs, imagined herself crashing over, onto the next snow-dappled level, and then helplessly into the icy black water. 

Even if her legs still functioned like a regular person's, it was doubtful her heart could survive the glacial shock. Even if the drunken man teetering by the rails had been of a mind to leap in after her, and had the uncommon means to be more help than hindrance. 

It would be an ugly way to die. And Morell deserved so much better. When her time eventually came, Dei willing, the life would simply flutter out of her chest, as they both slept. It would be too much to hope for that she could outlive him and keep him from grief, but she could at least die kindly...

Her stomach cinched, her worsening mood making her even more vulnerable to the cold, and she shook her head, attempting to shake all of it off but only forcing more air past her increasingly sparse hairline.

"Get a move on, old woman," she muttered, the words rising in thin vapour past her spectacles.

Two metres from the bottom of the broad steps was a man-hole cover, whose texture would help slow her down, and with some reasonable steering she could safely coast for quite some time without any obstacles, long enough for the wheelchair's mechanism to regain control; engaging the brakes too hard was best avoided in these conditions, even with a chair as solid as hers. 

Rotating so that the chair's larger rear wheels would be making the descent, she drew an X over her heart, leaned her body weight as far forward as she could, and prayed for gravity to be merciful. 

There was no pausing on the way down, only thunk after jaw-jarring thunk, and then the pounding of her heart in her ears as she continued backwards with a craning neck, controlling the situation as best she could. Until she was beneath the three-way lamp-post, its illumination granting no warmth while she soothed — as efficiently as possible — the spooked pony that thrashed about inside her chest, and spirit.

"That's halfway now," she told herself, though it was not quite true.

Round the bend she continued, dark water on her left and the closed bookstore's apologetic glow on her right, barely slowing before the rickety wooden bridge that patched the shelled concrete; because slowing would give her time to picture the damp old wood giving way. Even so, she had to press her eyes shut after setting course, humming to fill her ears against the complaints of straining planks, and their splintered, shin-high 'guard rail'.

For the next twenty or so metres, she enjoyed a boon of flat, spacious ground, before the frame of the iron gate came into view, its door long detached by residents and abandoned, without shame, against the wall of the Capeside Apartments. Here were steps again, and she took a slow breath, consoled herself that there were only three of them and that they were deep enough to rest in-between. With patience and endurance, it could be done. As long as the ground itself did nothing, to sabotage itself. 

Her eyes began to tear up and she cleared her throat, scolding herself the same way her mother always would, for letting fear and exhaustion get the better of her.

Soon, she emphasised, just a little further ahead, and they would be waiting for her, as light spilled from beneath a green leather upholstered door. It was regrettable that they could not have escorted her from the hostel, but fieldwork was unpredictable, and would never keep a civil clock. And it was regrettable that her dear Morrell had not called to inform her of the delay – but she could easily forgive him for that, if childlike exuberance had overtaken him at some crucial new discovery.

Imagining the smile on his long, ruddy face, the crow's feet gathering as his voice grew hoarse with fervour... gave her the courage necessary to begin. Positioned close enough to the wall to prevent wheel drift, she tightened her seat belt, engaged the chair's anti-tip device, then reached back as far as she could to grip the discarded iron gate.

Lean back... engage wheel motor... stabilize... settle...

It all sounded so simple, when her brittle upper body was left out of the description.

Lean back... engage wheel motor... stabilize... settle.

Her shoulders shook at the exertion, the fur-lining at her jacket's collar making her nape break out in sweat.

The final step would normally have been the worst, where handrails usually ended too early, so she thanked her stars that the icy gate was far wider than the stairs were long. "Nothing ventured..." she began to congratulate herself beneath her panting, relaxing back as the chair carried her past the the tenement's back entrance - only to have the rest of her words stolen, and her heart dragged down to her depths:

Where light usually glowed through the peephole and weather-damaged frame of the upholstered door, there was only darkness, and a dusting of undisturbed snow on the lion's head knocker. It was unthinkable that they could have closed up for the night without her, which meant that they must not have made it home yet! She pulled her thin upper lip inward, bit it to still its trembling as she imagined the bone-deep dampness of the reeds, working its chill through her husband's body; bit it once again, harder, to keep her foolish imagination from conjuring something worse.

Then a thought occurred: this was Martinaise, a district whose electrical infrastructure was just as neglected as its roads. It was entirely possible that the men had made it home, but were stuck in the dark, until some sub-station could be brought back online. Far from ideal in a bare-brick basement apartment, but they had blankets, and Gary's single plate gas stove could make tea and put the warmth back in their hands. 

If that were the case, she need only let them know she was back.

Thin hope was trickling into her, when a rough, high-pitched laugh came from the enclosed yard, behind and to her right. A startled hand pressed shakily to her breastbone, she quickly identified the noise: of course the neighbourhood urchins were still out and about, temperature and hour notwithstanding; whatever stimulants coursed tragically through their bloodstreams surely shielded them from fear of the cold, if not its eventual consequences. 

The scornful laugh hadn't been for her, she was fairly certain, but when a light went on in a Capeside window, proving her slim hope false, she felt entirely deserving of it.

"Foolish is as foolish does, Lena Louise Ballard."  

But even so, what was there to do but stay the course, at this point? Heading back to the hostel would be beyond masochism, and might only yield further disappointments. She must therefore either make it inside, or freeze to death in indecision.

To yell would be to go against both her nature and upbringing, her extensive vocal cord nodules sure to negate the effort besides; In addition, pulling that much cold air into her lungs was far more likely to cause a coughing fit, and make her even more of a laughing stock to her impish spectators.

No, she must reach the door itself, and if possible the knocker precisely. Which would mean either positioning her chair beside the staircase and precipitously leaning her upper body across, or bumping down the stairs to sit face to face with the knocker, potentially stranding herself — unless, for some bizarre reason, Gary had left his home unlocked, in the heart of Martinaise, and even she was not foolish enough to entertain such a thing.

She looked down at her hands, painfully flexed her swollen joints to restore enough blood flow to use them: a smarter woman would not have forgotten her squirrel-lined gloves back in Jamrock, apparently pale of importance compared to Morell's list of field gear. After all, a pair of antique lady's gloves wouldn't lead them to the Insulindian Phasmid, now would they? 

If the Phasmid isn't just another—

She cleared her throat harshly, to truncate the thought, then carefully steered her chair as close as possible to the edge, without scraping its wheels against the stairwell's brick walls. Her heart already thumping in apprehension, she twisted herself at the hips to rest both elbows upon the right armrest. There was at least the certainty that the chair outweighed her, and thus was never going to tip over, no matter how much of her upper body she leaned beyond the pivot point. Though, as for the dead-weight of her lower limbs...

She paused, in a moment's prudence, casting her eyes around for any sort of stray object that might aid in her reaching; there were sticks from the yard's tree, but nothing long or firm enough to either budge the knocker or make audible noise against the door. Briefly, sadly, her eyes lingered on the doorbell, clean but useless because Gary had disconnected it, after too many prank rings.

Forced into decisiveness, she extended her arm again, her ribs taking her weight against the hard edge of the armrest. Inch by inch, her right hand stretched closer to the brass lion, while her left hand gripped polished wood like a teratorn's talon. 

At last, her fingertips brushed it... brushed it... and curved around it, committing more of her weight to the angle. And she might have been able to retain purchase, had the knocker not been both too cold and too slippery, and had her supporting left arm not chosen that moment to spasm in protest. 

Forward momentum pulled her from the seat, her blaket- and denim-wrapped hips lodging atop the bricks while her torso hung down into the stairwell. Winded and experiencing multiple worrying sensations, she could not keep herself from calling out in distress: which, as expected, came as little more than a surprised croak, as of a scrawny hen who, strung upside down by her legs, stupidly awaited the knife.

Another peel of juvenile laughter hit her, and this time she knew it was personal – and accepted it.

Then humiliation is the dish of the day.

Spurred by the feeling of eyes upon her, she engaged her available stomach muscles (learning already where the bricks had bruised them) and pulled her elbows close to her sides, attempted to push herself backwards into the chair. It was doubly difficult to aim, when neither legs nor buttocks gave her any feedback on where she was going. The cold had gotten all the way up her jacket sleeves in the fuss, her arms now even less co-operative, and she gritted her teeth to ignore the shooting pains from her wrists.

In the meantime, one of the youths had gotten involved in some kind of shouting match with a resident of the apartments — hurling expletives and accusations of sexual deviance — which was at least helpful for keeping the sound of her own whimpering from reaching her ears.

Then the shouting stopped abruptly, after a breathy curse from above, and she was forced to listen again to the ceaseless recriminations rotating inside her head.

If you'd only stayed put.

Was your pride worth this?

Just think of how much trouble you've caused!

"This is the saddest attempted burglary I've ever seen."

The voice wasn't part of her inner lambasting, but rather drew closer from behind, soft, masculine and sardonic with concern.

"I'm— I'm so sorry, I've," her teeth were chattering, making her words hard to hear, "I'm making a public spectacle of myself."

She craned her neck to track the slender young man, accepting his hand and his arm around her chest as he pulled her upright; a task that gave little trouble to his toned, lithe body. 

Neither did the cold seem to concern him, the silk shirt under his linen jacket opened three buttons down at the neck, a metal dragon pendant sapping further heat from his tanned flesh.

"Never mind that," he breathed, with a wave of long, nimble fingers. "What ever were you trying to achieve?"

Given the emotional lifeline, she almost broke into tears, and narrowly managed to reduce the feeling to a bobbing of her throat.

"I was trying to reach the knocker, to... to let my husband know I'd made it back."

The young man raised his brows in arch surprise: "The pie-man is your husband? Where's he been hiding you for so long?"

"'Pie-man'? Oh, gracious no!" She was too spent to find the humour in it. "Gary is my husband's assistant, we're — we're s-stayin here while they're on expedition, on the coast. I was at the Whirling, and—"

"And they left you to make it back here on your own?" His gentle brown eyes narrowed in displeasure.

"No, not- not exactly. They were supposed to be done laying traps by this evening, and come escort me home. But they didn't show up, so I, I had to assume something came up."

He turned to look back the way she had come, lifted his finely-sculpted features to survey the bothersome ground. His were the very definition of 'bedroom eyes', no matter how tensed with worry, his well-kempt eyebrows enhancing the effect; he was beautiful in a way that was slowly putting her at ease.

"I'm afraid I don't think they're in there," he sighed.

"No," she sank down. "Neither do I. But I thought... stupid, I know, but—"

He shook his head. "Not stupid. Nobody wants to be stuck out in the cold. So let's both get inside."

Her eyes went between his and the door. "But?"

"If you live here, then it's not breaking in," he noted, moving lightly down the steps. "And if I'm not mistaken..." He pulled down the handle, and to her great surprise, the door clicked open. 

Somewhat grimly, he hummed. "I thought so."

She looked at him questioningly, and he shrugged.

"Intimidation tactics. Your friend should be more careful when orating his opinions."

A grumble of her anxious chest. "We've told him so. He always gets himself so worked up, trying to find a reason for why things aren't working out for him, no matter how hard he tries... and it always comes back to somebody else's fault. We've been hoping that, as he gets older, he'll gain some kind of perspective."

"For his sake, he'd better. But for now," he pushed the door fully open, then came back up the stairs. "Let's go. I'll support your descent."

She frowned in earnest apology. "You're very kind, sweetie, but... that's just not going to work. We're heavier than we look, and I- I can't really risk not having someone both in front and behind. It's a complicated business. And with so many breakable parts, between myself and the mechanisms..."

He put his hand on his hips, taking in the dimensions of the machine with precise movements of his eyes. "You're right. If I end up getting my ankles crushed, that'll put a real dent in my prospects."

"Thank you for helping me," she emphasised. "If you'll just fetch some blankets from inside, I- I'm sure I'll be fine. They can't be much longer, I'm sure."

The young man's eyebrows shot up and he laughed, smooth as honey. "You really think I'll just leave you out in the elements?"

"Well..." I really can't bear to be more of a bother.

"Not for more than a few minutes, if I can help it." As suggested, he dipped inside the apartment, and quickly returned with a thick blanket, draping it over her shoulders and hands. "Hang tight," he advised, with a puckish smile that made her heart skip.

A gigolo, the realisation hit at last. No wonder he moves like both cat and cream.

She nodded her obedience, pulling the blanket closer at her neck as he hastened back into Capeside, soon emerging on the second floor walkway and moving directly to a heavy metal door on the far right. After knocking, he stuck his hands in his back pockets, and waited until the door opened, to quickly step inside.

Not a minute later, he was followed out again by a tall, heavy set woman in far more sensible clothes than either of theirs. By the time the pair emerged from the building, she had taken the lead, flexing her sturdily gloved hands in readiness.

"Sorry for making you wait," the woman said, in a Graad-accented voice that was gruff but considerate.

"Oh, not at all!" she exclaimed, her chest fluttering with awkwardness: the neighbourhood was being galvanised for the sake of one foolish stranger, and she had little means by which to repay them.

"I am Billie," the woman told her, then gestured her open hands at the chair's push handles. "May I?"

She nodded quick consent. "A pleasure… yes, thank you, I, I'm Lena."

Having moved back to the steps below, the gigolo chuckled: "Emre. Sorry, I'm not in the habit of passing out my name."

"He's a very suspicious boy."

"Not suspicious," he corrected, widening his grip on the under-carriage. "Just cautious."

After a concise warning - and with a confidence that suggested she was no stranger to the process - Billie angled the chair up and, step by gradual step, guided them downstairs more smoothly than Lena had dared hope for. 

It was difficult to manoeuvre as a group from the cramped doorway and past the front shelves that stored Gary's non-essentials, but her Samaritans persisted, reacting with barely a grunt to the inevitable sharp-edged bumps.

"I'm so sorry!" Lena protested at each impact, her brow cut deep with guilt by the time she was lifted onto the raised living area. 

The three of them took up most of the main room's floor space, putting everything at close quarters. While Emre was keeping his eyes to himself, Billie did not hesitate to survey the furnishings, particularly twisting her strong features at the flag of the Revacholian Suzerain.

"He is your friend, and so I try not to be rude, but this Gary..." she moved her attention to the large Hjelmdallerman poster, "he is in love with a past that never existed."

"He... means well," Lena said, as she always did, because thinking too hard about Gary's politics made her stomach sour.

"I do not know if he does," Billie sighed. "But I do know that he thinks some of us are worth more well-meaning than others."

Emre hummed in agreement and gestured with his chin, Lena following it to the line-up of racial caricatures across a set of colonial mugs. She winced, remembering all the times she and Morell had smiled politely when they had been served tea in those mugs, kept smiling politely when Gary had waxed lyrical about the artwork's cultural significance and how nobody could appreciate light-hearted social commentary anymore.

"They were his father's," she explained. "Gary's... very protective of his history. Sometimes I think it's all that keeps him above water."

Billie tipped her head. "As I said, he is living in the past, and — forgive me, but — sticking his head in the sand. The world keeps moving. We must all keep moving, forward. You stay stuck, and you get left behind." She returned her gaze to Lena: "I am sure you can understand the danger in that, for all involved."

The implication was all too pertinent, and she was still much too cold to continue the examination. She swallowed, and simply nodded.

"Speaking of," Emre said, investigating the westerly nook that passed as a kitchen, "where does our host keep his treats? To go with the celebratory tea we're having."

Lena smiled sheepishly. "I don't know about any treats, dear, though there are a variety of artisanal teas in those clay— yes, just there."

Despite his vocation as a pie courier, Gary had neither the space nor the inclination for baking; furthermore, he often emphasised how treating one's body as a temple was the only way to be a truly productive individual, and was thus a determinedly ascetic eater.

"Enjoying just one slice of chocolate cake doesn't make you a degenerate, Gary," she had teased with a smile, and he had pulled himself stiff in response:

"Everything starts with 'just one', Lena. If we let ourselves weaken so easily, what sort of future could we hope to give our children?"

She had chuckled at him, to smother her discomfort, and met her husband's eyes: "That's one more for us, then, darlin'."

But it was no way to live and it saddened her: when life's pleasures grew fewer and fewer over time, it was baleful thing to reject those available — and made one come off as quite antisocial, besides.

"I might have something in my luggage, though," she told Emre, and switched on her chair motor, navigated carefully to the shoebox of a bedroom that had been entirely given over to them for the duration.

The bed was made, unevenly, one side of the pale yellow comforter tucked tightly at the wall corner, the outer side folded to air; their shared luggage lay open upon the bed, as it had been that morning, decanted documentation filling what remained of the foot; the overhead trapeze bar that Gary had erected for her hung patiently from its wall mounting, anticipating another morning where she would reach up one and then the other arm, using it to stretch the cricks out of her shoulders, then to pull herself upright, almost always to a gentle touch from Morell's broad hand, to her scapula or spine, and whatever whispered fondness his sleepy throat could provide.

She must have made some pitiable sound of longing, to prompt Billie's decisive grunt from the other room:

"I think you must come stay at my place instead. It is warmer there, and I have soup."

Though her immediate impulse was to refuse, rather than become an even greater burden on a willing stranger, the thought of leaving the chill of the basement apartment behind was tempting. 

"Are you sure that's all right? You must have your own family to see to." Everything about Billie said that she was an experienced wife and mother. "And— oh my, you'd have to lug my chair up and down even more stairs!"

The woman shook her head firmly. "My girls are with their friends in Jamrock. And Victor... well. He will be back when he is back. It's better he doesn't get in the way."

"Victor is your husband?"

"He is, technically, yes. But this Victor, he is also a... tomcat alleycat. Oh yes, he enjoys when you feed him and scratch behind his ears..." a melancholy affection, resigned to the inevitable, "but you will never persuade him to stay home. He wants to be out and free, with the other cats. And you can't... you mustn't spend your time worrying about an alleycat of a husband. They always come back, when they've had their fun."

Leaning against the bedroom's doorframe, Emre exhaled pointedly. "It doesn't have to be that way, you know."

"I am aware." There was no arguing with her, a woman sternly familiar with her heart's foibles. 

Before she could forget and let Emre down, Lena quickly retrieved the roll of thin shortbread biscuits from her luggage and tucked it under her blanket.

"Well, if it really isn't a bother," she made herself smile cheerfully, "then I'd be truly grateful for the company, and your hospitality."

Billie's replying smile was more sedate. "And your husband, who leaves you on your own like this? Is he also a tomcat?"

"Morell? Oh goodness no, he's... well, if anything he's quite like a wild hare. Always so vigilant, he never wants to miss a single detail." Not on an expedition, and not on my face either. "His eyes are hardly ever still, when he's thinking. Darting around so much, a person might think him quite mad! Though… he really is nothing of the sort."

"But you can make him be still, " Billie intuited, generously.

"Sometimes, maybe. It's the least I can do, when he takes such good care of me. And now," her heart cinched, at her fear's return, "he could be stuck somewhere, out there in this cold. Because of me."

Billie's mouth was sceptical. "Why do you say this?"

"Well..." It was never easy, to convince others of truths one's heart found self-evident. "Do you perhaps... are you familiar with a group of creatures called 'cryptids'?"

A light chuckle from Emre.

"Like vampires?" Billie frowned, analysing the word further. "Dead things?"

"No, not dead... at least, ideally not. The word comes from the ancient Meteoran 'kruptós', meaning 'hidden' or 'secret'. It refers to species that are so elusive that many people assume them fictitious."

Lena worried that she might be dismissed out of hand, as was so often the case, and she readied herself for it, and to drop the subject at once, if need be. She was in no spirit to be fighting for her beliefs. 

"They are strange and unusual things?”  Billie asked. “Not just good at hiding?" There was a neutral curiosity in her, which encouraged Lena.

"Well, sometimes they can seem quite unremarkable, like the cave salamander proteus valvasa. But even it has a fascinating story to tell, about adaptation and micro-biomes.” At Billie's evident interest, she elaborated: “Its first written account was over four hundred years ago, in the journals of renowned Yugo-Graad naturalist Valvasor Kriniz, describing how, when heavy rains washed the salamanders up to the surface, local people assumed they were proof of subterranean dragons. Proteus valvasa is neotenous, you see; which is to say that it retains juvenile characteristics throughout its life-cycle, thus appearing quite reasonably like recently hatched baby dragons."

"Baby dragons..." Billie's eyes imagined them, pleasure on her lips.

"They are one of only two irrefutably confirmed cryptid species, out of the more than two thousand listed by the Cryptozoological Society of Chemnie. They used to include over two thousand more, but those were all eventually labelled as either hoaxes or misidentifications – for instance, mistaking a localised colour variation for a separate species, where the creature's habitat contained an unusually high amount of certain soil minerals."

Billie was nodding along, clearly fascinated, and Lena felt a little more of the cold leave her heart. 

“You and your husband study such creatures? That is why you are visiting here?"

"Well, Morell does most of the actual research," she smiled at her lap. "He's the one with the experience in academia, I'm just," she chuckled, "I suppose in some ways I've been fortunate enough to be brought along for the ride. My own work experience is in sales, and that's hardly applicable!"

"You must not diminish yourself,” Billie cautioned. 

"Oh, believe me, I'm not! I'm just being realistic. I'm more of a story-teller than a scientist."

"Well, how else must most of us learn, if not from stories? Not everyone has the luxury of a college education." She sent a good-natured glance over at Emre, who still stood silently in the doorway, contentedly people-watching.

"That's true," Lena acknowledged.

"I try to read every day," Billie continued, "though it is sometimes no more than five minutes where I can. But when I am then cooking or cleaning or walking to work, there are stories always in my head. They keep me company. And, I think, keep my brains from going soft."

It was all too relatable, especially when Morell journeyed his furthest away and she could not hope to accompany him: she would read and re-read the regional lore, catalogue and re-analyse decades of collected clippings, the residual print ink on her fingertips providing an additional ward against the loneliness.

"But why, then," Billie reminded her, "do you say it is your fault, if he has been delayed in the field?"

Lena exhaled heavily. "Morell is always passionate about his work, but... this expedition holds a special significance – for both of us, really, but for me in particular. And knowing that..." 

She stared off, picturing decades-old memories of the Martinaise coast and transposing her decades older husband, hunkered down over the trap she had designed with her own hands, so intently focussed that even the most chest-convulsing coughs might pass his notice. 

She pressed her fist over her heart, felt its fragile cage of bones.

"He couldn't bear to let me down. He'll keep pushing himself, for my sake. That's..." Her throat tightened, and she cleared it with only partial success. "That's just the sort of man he is."

Emre murmured something to himself, the word "cryptid" some bitter part of it.

"If that is the case," Billie replied, "then what would he want for you to do, now?"

Lena sighed, the answer obvious. "He'd want me to be logical and not assume the worst. And he'd want me to rest and not make myself sick worrying, so we're not both bed-ridden, if it comes to it."

Each time they mutually fell ill, it was more difficult to cope than the previous; financially and emotionally, they couldn't afford to both be stuck in bed. And even if she couldn't go to meetings on his behalf, her habitually rough throat was better than a pair of wet lungs, so she could at least make phone calls. She could at least bring him food.

To say nothing of the expense, should they be forced to hire an aid for the duration.

If only I had half the force of will you do, darling. Once you put your mind to something...

"Then it's settled," Billie nodded. "Let's get back to my place, before it starts snowing."

Emre pushed himself off the wall at that, and moved towards the front door. There was an impatience in him, though no apparent annoyance.

Lena reversed out of the bedroom, then paused, her eye caught by the copy of The Hidden World of Walking Sticks, still open to the page detailing all known sightings of the great ghost among ghost insects (including her own, vaguely attributed). "But... what if they come back, while I'm not around? And they worry about me?"

"I'll ask some folks to keep an eye out," Emre assured her. "Actually, now that I think about it: those kids never do seem to go inside, I suspect they'd keep watch for some light bribery. They're so wired, there's no way they'd miss anyone going past."

The dread in her chest lessened. "Are you sure? I'd offer to pay, but I really don't have anything to spare."

"Oh, don't worry about it," he shrugged. "The city was good to me tonight."

I hope so. I hope those people are kind to you, more often than not.

She could already tell that he was the sort of boy to claim he was unaffected when people said cruel things or abused his trust; 'it's all water off a duck's back', he would surely say. Though she could not guess at his circumstances, his accent at least showed that he was a relative newcomer, and from Billie's comment, that newness co-incided with his university attendance, likely no more than six months into the current school year. Yet he seemed to have already acquired the Revacholian malaise, of caring at once too little and altogether too much.

She backed into the stairwell, and felt Billie take hold of the chair's handles, already heaving upwards so that Emre had to rush to take hold of the bottom, his bedroom eyes briefly panicked in a way that brought a further soul-lightening chuckle from Lena.

"I am cleaning a house in Jamrock early tomorrow," Billie was saying, her breath somehow unaffected by the effort, "so I will escort you to the cafeteria on my way. If we do not hear from your husband tonight, he will surely try to contact you there, as soon as possible."

"They do have a phone at the Whirling..." Lena considered, keeping her eyes low, upon the shape of the biscuit package beneath her blanket, "I should call our house-sitter and let her  know we might be delayed. Maybe she already knows, more than I do."

She stopped in its tracks the thought that attempted to suggest a bleaker reason that somebody might call her home, with news.

"Thank you," she told Billie instead, her gratitude made trembly by the final step passing under her wheels.

But there was no reply from the woman, only the continued steering of her chair towards the tenement's entrance, and Lena twisted to see what might have silenced her: Billie's face was serious, her eyes inwardly focussed and her lips moving slightly, as though she were rehearsing something. 

Eventually, perhaps due to Lena's curious gaze, the words came:

"It is easy to feel foolish for having hope. This world... it would be easier for powerful people if we did not. But recently..." she inhaled, her lips red and damp from condensation. "I have heard a lot more talk of the Return these past few months. People are saying it could be now, as soon as Spring warms the ground."

"Le Retour," Lena murmured, moved by syllables that were precious in her mouth. 

It was a legend, wholly different to the possibility of strange, hitherto undiscovered animals; a political fantasy, but one which felt as real as their own DNA to a Revacholian. 

When the world felt cursed enough, it seemed inevitable that the tides would turn eventually, as with all things in nature.

"Of course, there are those who make fun of it—"

"There always are," Lena sighed, sitting back again as they entered the building, and stale air momentarily stifled her senses. 

"I think because they are afraid. What if they believe, and then they are disappointed?" A grim chuckle. "It is a special kind of coward who runs away from hope."

Emre snorted lightly, reminding Lena that he was still there, traipsing on in their periphery.

"For me," Billie said, "and I think for you as well, there is no shame in being wrong, about a comforting story."

"Well..." Lena wanted to agree, but something in her stomach was unsettled, and not just by the beginnings of another staircase.

"If Spring comes, and then Summer, and there is no giant change in the world... oh well. So what? It can always come later. It does not mean that hope is a dead dog."

That they all had to pass every day for weeks, forced to observe as the flies gathered in the heat, as hope's skin rotted and slid from hope's sun-bleached bones.

"But, you know what I've been thinking?" Billie let the question hang, until Emre had opened the door to the outside walkway. "Maybe the Return isn't one event that changes everything. Maybe it is a season, of smaller Returnings that all add up."

Lena closed her eyes, replacing the apartment door that resembled a submarine airlock with an empty expanse of canvas, awaiting violent gifts of colour.

"It's a wonderful thought," she husked.

"And if that is so," the sturdy door moved with a brief, metallic squawk, "then we might not even notice when it begins. For all that we know, it already has."

Her eyes still shut, Lena scented onion and buckwheat soup, and undertones of old paper, as the temperature changed again. She opened them, and took in a room that was tiny but full of life, every inch telling a story of its inhabitants' lives. The steam from the kitchen kept the cold at bay, fogging up the window glass around squares of tacked-on newspaper; much less effective than fabric curtains, but rich in memories, even if not theirs. 

Like the Pale. 

Everything in existence was somebody's nostalgia; at a certain point, it stopped mattering whose.

"A season of returns," Lena breathed, her vocal cords feeling somehow less rough. "I wonder if..."

What sort of miracles – however microscopic – might be possible, if it were true?

Emre had remained in the doorway, apparently his natural habitat. "I hope you both get what you're waiting for. As for me, there's a glass of wine and a class assignments that have probably developed abandonment issues by now. So I should get back." He pushed off the doorframe, then paused for reassurance: "After I bribe those kids for you."

"I really can't thank you enough," Lena insisted, and he shrugged.

"No need. I just like when things are mellow. And," a tiny, sly smirk passed over his lips, "I prefer when bodies aren't piling up, where I have to see them on my smoke break."

Lena smiled demurely down, into a memory that seemed far older than that morning. "I'm glad that stunned fox of a man was able to help, despite not remembering what sort of world he woke up in."

"The gendarme with the mutton-chops and crocodile shoes?"

"That's the one." He had left a firm impression upon her — if not the frame of her wheelchair.

"And his camp little partner," Emri added airily. "Though who am I to talk?"

"Camp?" Though their exchanges had been brief, the Seolite man had struck her as much more stoically-inclined than theatrical.

"The copine in his vintage aerostat-chic. Which was undoubtedly custom-tailored, probably by himself. And we mustn't forget the matching leather gloves, to draw attention to his hands. It's calculated camp, one hundred yards away."

Aware they were conversing through a foreign thicket of subcultural awareness, Lena only nodded politely.

Billie had acquired an apron and a wooden spoon, and gestured mock-aggressively at him. "Enough with this now, you are letting the cold in. What happened to getting back to your lonely homework?"

Emre bowed his head - not without amusement - and raised his hands, ducked backwards as elegantly as possible before swinging the door shut.

"Finally," the woman sighed, gruffly putting her hands to her hips. "Now we can speak of the important things."

Feeling awkward about lingering in the very middle of the small room, but with nowhere else to go but into the adjoining children's quarters, Lena re-clasped her fingers, her wrists crinkling against the blanket-covered biscuit packet. "What would those be?" she asked cautiously.

Billie descended upon the foot of the bed, her stance wide, and leaned forward onto her thighs, an eager grin breaking the neutrality of her face:

"You must tell me everything you know about the creature that has led you here. It can be barter: my soup for your story."

There was not a cell within Lena that hesitated, when offered such a trade.

"Well, for a start... there was an unbelievably beautiful day..."

The sort of day that changes a person, for the rest of their lives.