Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The changing of the seasons was subtle in most places on No Man's Land. The lazy heat of the afternoon suns gave way sooner to the chill of the desert night. The worms stayed in their holes longer, coming out only briefly in the evening to pester any straggling citizens not safely in their homes. And in sleepy Little Braeburn, the wind picked up.

A rural two-plant town on the edge of the seven cities, just far enough to be safe harbor for a couple of well-behaved outlaws, but just close enough that bandits were few and far between, Little Braeburn was most well-known for the windmills that supplemented its plant power. They creaked and groaned, useless pillars of sand-beaten metal for most of the year, but for a few months near the year's end, the wind would rise, pulling the sand from the dunes and sending the mills into motion. This extra power meant they could stock up on necessities from the plants and afford a little joy besides. This time of plenty was much anticipated and warmly loved by adults and children alike, marked by the festival of Hallow's Night.

Vash grinned ear to ear as they wound their way through the crowd, pulling Wolfwood to every stall to admire the crafts and the candies. The vendors were still setting up, preparing for the evening's festivities.

"You should join the costume contest," Wolfwood elbowed him, pointing toward the stage where sign-ups were being held. “I think you have a good shot.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t even have a costume."

“Oh, I don’t know,” he grinned. “I think you have the best Vash the Stampede costume this side of Octovern.”

Vash laughed, but didn’t look over, hungry gaze still stuck on the booth with a large vat of oil, watching the vendor pull out tubs of dough and cinnamon sugar.

“Maybe you should enter,” Vash poked him lightly. “Your priest costume isn't very convincing if you ask me, but the giant cross might help your chances.”

“Being a priest ain’t a costume," Wolfwood put a dramatic hand over his heart. "It’s a respectable trade.”

“I don't think most people refer to it as a trade,” Vash accused, finally pulling himself away from the doughnut booth and wandering over to the next one. “Besides, if you’re gonna play that card, I’m not a costume either.”

“You sure about that?” Wolfwood snorted. “Who do you think he’s dressed as, then?” Vash turned to see what Wolfwood was gesturing to, a youth near the contest stage in a too-big red drape of thin linen, carefully sewn into a coat from what had once been a curtain. Much to Vash’s horror, his short hair was sprayed a cheap yellow and gelled up into little, clearly defined spikes. He fit right in with the other costumes around, ghosts and outlaws and monsters of every sort, sanitized versions of everything that dealt in fear. Vash groaned and covered his eyes, embarrassed.

“Ah, c’mon Needle-Noggin. It’s not that bad,” Wolfwood threw an arm around him and led him further down the line of stalls. “Think of it this way. If anyone recognizes you, they’ll just think you’re dressed up. No shoot-outs,” he comforted.

“Yeah…,” Vash sighed. “Except the guy already following us of course.”

Partway through their conversation, one man had perked up an ear and turned to leave when they had.

“Yeah, I noticed him too,” Wolfwood admitted, picking up his pace through the milling crowd as he tried to lose their tail’s line of sight.

“Excuse me- Excuse me, sir?” he was still following them persistently, abnormally loud for a stalker, and a tone to his voice that sounded like a plea. Wolfwood felt Vash’s steps slow beside him and grabbed his arm, yanking him forward. “Father! Wait, please-,”

That gave Wolfwood pause. His own steps slowed, and he glanced over his shoulder at the approaching man. He was young, fumbling through the crowd with hurried apologies, adjusting his hat with every other step as it tried to fall down over his face. His suit was brown and green, made of light, breathable cloth that couldn’t have been cheap, and about a size too big for his shoulders. By the time he reached them he was breathing heavy, eyes wide and eager as he glanced between them.

“Thank you, Fath-,”

“Just Priest is fine,” Wolfwood corrected, arms crossed. His tone was pleasantly neutral, though, impartial and kind as he slipped easily into the role. “What can I do for you?”

“I- um-,” he took a second to compose himself, wiping his forehead with a thin handkerchief and stuffing it back into his pocket before continuing. “My name is Houston Winsley. I inherited some property past the edge of town. You’ve heard of the Winsley House?”

He and Vash both shook their head.

“We’re just passing through,” Wolfwood explained. “Don’t know much about the area I’m afraid.”

“Neither do I, actually,” Houston sighed. “I’m from New Joshua. I’ve had a hell of a time trying to manage the paperwork for this place, so I came down to handle a few things in person. I barely even knew the folks to be honest, but I suppose I was still closest in relation.”

“You said this was an inheritance?” Wolfwood frowned. “You looking for a funeral service?”

Houston shook his head.

“They’re long buried. Horrible business. In truth, it’s been three years now the house has been in my name, and I’ve done nothing but pay taxes on it. I need to get it sold. Kind of hard when no one will go near it, though,” he pinched at the hem of his vest, worrying it with his thumb. “Do you do blessings, Mr. Priest? Or exorcisms?”

—

Houston, it turned out, wasn’t willing to set foot on the property either.

I don’t know much about the case. He had admitted. Just that they were murdered. Slaughtered, really. They mostly kept to themselves, so they didn’t find the bodies for a while. He’d shuddered, horrified. I didn’t listen to the locals. Thought it was all superstition. …That place is cursed. I couldn’t make it past the front gate. You can just tell that something evil’s there.

Wolfwood wasn’t really in the market for new assignments — he was already on a job, after all — but Houston had offered a payment double what Wolfwood would have charged, enough to cover the room for a few extra nights, more ammunition, and maybe a few of those cinnamon doughnuts Vash had been eying so hungrily.

He half expected Vash to whine about being pulled away from the festival preparations, but he was oddly quiet as they left the town. The mention of so cruel a murder must have sobered him, and the walk was a silent one as they followed Houston’s directions to the east. The windmills stood sentry at the edge of the town, serving to break the worst of the wind, and creaking their rhythmic song to the empty sands. Their sounds soon faded, drowned by the breath of the desert, a hollow rushing of air that flung ghosts of sand up from the crests of the dunes, dancing figures with multiple shadows that fell to nothing as the wind dropped and rose.

It was easy for Wolfwood to feel small in moments like these, out of place under alien suns that were the only he’d ever known, alone in the relentless heat and whispering wind of an unforgiving planet. Alone, even with Vash at his side. Especially with Vash at his side.

It was early afternoon still, when they arrived.

The house loomed above them, three stories of sand-beaten wood and weathered glass, scratched foggy from the rough treatment of the sandy wind. The weather in these parts was capricious. In town, the buildings stood together, every structure protected on at least one side by the close presence of another. This house stood proudly alone, built for the safety of privacy and the cold comfort that seclusion brought to those familiar with isolation. As a result, it bore the force of storms to all sides, shingles torn and structure crooked from the straight-line winds, the consequences of its solitude.

The desert was preparing another storm for them it seemed, the splintered eaves whistling with the portent of a louder evening. Sand rolled on the wind, and the constant movement must have played tricks on their eyes, because something seemed to shift behind the translucent glass. On the upper floor a shadow wavered like the mirage of water, seen clearer out of the corner of the eye, and when Vash flicked his sight up to meet its gaze, it halted altogether.

“What is it?”

Wolfwood had reached the gate, several steps ahead, one hand resting on the smooth metal.

“Not sure,” Vash frowned. “There’s something-,”

The approach of two riders interrupted him. The gallop of toma carried easily through the empty landscape even as the footfalls were muffled by the soft, shifting ground. The figures crested the closest dune, and Wolfwood’s shoulders fell from where they’d tensed, Vash’s grin going wide.

“Insurance girls! What are you doing here?”

“Mr. Vash!” Milly unwound her traveling scarf, returning his smile as her tomas trotted to a halt. “And Mr. Priest, what a pleasant surprise.”

“We could ask you the same thing,” Meryl dismounted, giving her tomas a comforting pat as she tied it to the fence, then turned to Vash. "Why are you here?"

“I’m just tagging along,” he assured her, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Wolfwood’s the one who’s been asked here.”

“You?” Meryl turned to Wolfwood. “What sort of business could you possibly have?”

"Priest business," he grinned. "Been hired to give the place a blessing or two. Or ten from the sound of things."

"So this is about the ghost?" She frowned at him. "Not very priestly of you to take advantage of a man who's scared out of his wits."

“Waddya mean?” Wolfwood stood straighter as Meryl walked past him and through the gate. “He approached me! Why is everyone so dead-set on disrespecting my craft today? Being a priest is very serious business. Why are you here, anyway?”

“We’ve been hired to estimate the value of the property,” she spun to poke a stern finger at Vash's chest. “So don’t you go devaluing it now, it’ll throw off our assessment.”

Vash threw up his hands in surrender.

"Best behavior, honest," he promised. Meryl hummed and turned her attention back to Wolfwood as he caught up, letting the gate clang closed after Milly walked through.

“So you’re going to, very seriously, exorcise this place of ghosts?” Meryl raised an eyebrow at him, the four of them crossing the threshold of the property and taking the path up to the porch steps.

“Ghosts don’t exist,” Wolfwood said. “I’m here to give the guy a little peace of mind. That’s the actually important part of being a priest.”

“It’s unethical,” Meryl objected. “You can’t take Houston’s money if you’re not actually going to do anything.”

“I’ll say a few prayers or something,” Wolfwood assured her. “The result will be the same. He'll feel a bit better about all the history here, and he'll get to honestly tell any buyers that he had the place blessed.”

The porch was half-covered in sand, mounds of it falling from where a small dune had nearly enveloped the northern side. Wolfwood took point, the door groaning in protest as he pushed it open slowly. His eyes swept the room, a small foyer with nothing but a dusty rug, a small table, and a coat rack.

“It’s so… intact,” he pushed all the way in, looking around at the walls as everyone else filed in behind him.

“Of course,” Meryl remarked, taking a closer inspection of the worm holes in the baseboards. “No one goes near this place anymore. Didn’t you do any research before you came here?”

Wolfwood shrugged, opening the other two doors in the room wide and peering down the halls.

“Not really. Houston didn’t go into any detail on the murders, just said it was bad. I can imagine the rest. Bandits probably, this far out from town.”

“I mean I guess that about sums it up," Meryl stood. “The details are weird, though. It was bandits. But they found them all dead right next to the family.”

“So one of the gang got greedy. Offed the rest and made out with the loot alone.”

“Nope. Police report said nothing was stolen. The family was shot, two parents and a little girl, but the bandits all had heart attacks. Dropped dead from fear with their guns still in their hands.”

Wolfwood raised his eyebrows, then without looking snagged Milly’s sleeve, pulling her back towards the group. She’d started to peek down one of the halls, and the place was big enough that if she wandered off it would be a task to find her.

“That… is weird,” he admitted. “Ever heard of anything like that, Needle-Noggin? …Vash?”

Wolfwood spun, trying to catch sight of red down either of the halls and meeting only the dull gray and brown of faded, dusty wood and Vash’s bag resting against the wall.

“Great,” he slapped a hand over his eyes and dragged it down, then pulled out a cigarette. “You girls stick together and head that way, I’ll look down here.”

“I don’t see how you losing Vash is our problem,” but Meryl grabbed Milly’s hand and headed down the designated hall regardless. “Come on Milly, we’ve got an evaluation to do.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Wolfwood finished his cigarette before heading out himself, breathing out slowly and watching as the smoke drifted up to the ceiling, the movement shifting cobwebs that he hadn’t even seen. Three years. The place was both impressively decayed and remarkably untouched for the span of time. He could imagine people still living here, assuming those people were particularly bad at cleaning and pest control. He pinched out the end of the cigarette, stuffing it into his pocket as he set off down the hall to find Vash.

The rest of the house was much the same as the foyer. There was plenty of dust, but no sand had made its way in yet. The electricity would have long been shut off, and light filtered poorly through the glass of the windows, so the rooms were bathed in an ambient orange. Shadows drifted away from their source, fading into mottled splotches of light and surrendering to further shadow. Worms skittered along the ceilings and back into their holes at his approach, but no human had been through here in years. Superstition or no, Wolfwood understood why people avoided this place. The dust-dulled colors and the muffled silence of too many empty rooms lent an air of solemnity to the house that left him feeling like a trespasser.

He sighed, worrying the cross at his neck with his thumb, then reached back and unhooked the chain. Meryl was right, might as well say a few prayers while he was here. It was hardly going to do anything against lingering evil. The ghosts that haunted this place were memories, the knowledge of tragedy and the promise that it would happen again. Still, he went room to room with his cross in his hand like a talisman and a short blessing on his lips. He knew better than to think he could protect people with words, but it felt good to speak the sentiments aloud. This was a large place, with plenty of rooms, and it would be a shame for it to fall into true disrepair. People could be happy here. He wanted people to be happy here.

He mapped the layout in his head as he moved, the doors complaining at every demand, until finally he reached the end, the hall opening into a large ballroom.

For the first time, Wolfwood felt it, the foreboding that Houston had mentioned surrounding the house. It was far darker here, in the center of the structure, and the wind was quieter too, his own breathing and the soft hush of his footsteps all the louder as a result. The ceiling vaulted overhead, the height of the room spanning two stories. Twin stairs wrapped up the far wall to a small balcony and the second floor of the house. The whole vast space felt hollow. It was empty save the large central carpet, fouled by stains, dark spots of long dead and dried rot that he was sure soaked straight through to the wood below. Vash stood unmoving in the center, back to him.

“Hey Spikey?” Wolfwood approached slowly, his heart beating faster at the scene. “You good?”

Vash glanced up, his face clearing from grim to pleasant in the blink of an eye.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. All good," he shook his head, though, eyes trailing around the room. "I just keep feeling like-,”

“Wait!”

Their heads both whipped to the stairs as a shout echoed from the floor above. They tore up the steps, freezing halfway in the ascent as Milly skidded to a stop on the balcony, coming from the southern hall. She looked around wildly, eyes red-rimmed with tears, finally landing on Meryl as she ran in from the northern wing.

“Where did she go?” Milly asked.

Meryl pulled up short, confused. “Where did who go?”

“There was a girl, ma’am,” she eventually murmured, quiet and crestfallen. “There was a girl in the hall just now. She ran this way, I saw her. She looked so sad.”

“Milly…,” Meryl said carefully, glancing back down the hall she’d come from and to the other end where Milly had been. “There can’t be a girl. There’s no one here but us.” She glanced at the boys for confirmation, and Milly followed her gaze down the steps, her eyes locking onto Vash’s as they met.

“She wants you to know,” she said, eyes wide and scared in an uncharacteristically somber way.

“What?” Vash whispered, thrown. He cleared his throat, then continued in a more comforting tone, low and steady. “Who wants me to know what?”

Milly shook her head, a negation and a clearing of the expression on her face, until she looked more confusedly towards Meryl.

“That’s what she said. The little girl. She wants you to know.”

Chapter Text

They gathered in one of the larger first-floor sitting rooms, pulling out food and water around a small coffee table. It wasn’t particularly late yet, but it was dim in the room, the light from outside all but faded as the storm picked up. Wolfwood dug in his bag for his flashlight and clicked it on with a quick prayer of thanks when it flickered to life. He set it on the table to give them a little extra light to eat by.

“I really did see her,” Milly said for the third time around a bite of sandwich. “A little girl in a pretty blue dress.”

“We believe you, Milly,” Meryl assured her, trying to wipe a spot off the table and grimacing when the cloth came away with a thick coating of dust. “I’m just saying it’s weird. A little girl couldn’t have survived out here all alone, and besides, there’s nowhere for her to have gone.”

“You don’t believe in ghosts, Meryl?”

“Of course not, it’s just a bunch of superstition,” she said off-handedly, more focused on trying to balance her lunch bag in her lap.

“Well what about you, Mr. Priest?” Milly turned to him. “Aren’t you supposed to believe in an afterlife?”

“That’s different than believing in ghosts,” he pointed out. “The dead stay dead. Why would they want to stick around here any longer than they have to anyway? ‘S not their business anymore.”

“Because they care,” Milly pushed. “Because they want to make sure the people they love are alright.”

“What do you think this one’s sticking around for, then? Her family’s long gone,” Wolfwood realized how harsh it sounded as soon as it left his mouth, but Milly didn’t take it to heart. She thought for a moment, staring off into a dark corner of the room. He resisted the urge to look. 

“Maybe she just has something she wants to say.”

He didn’t have a response to that. The conversation died out, leaving them huddled inside their circle of light and quiet. Just outside, the storm was threatening to get serious, wavering between lulls of peace and awful howls that echoed in his ears long after they ended. The minimal daylight that still filtered in through the windows was fickle and erratic, playing to the whims of the sand outside. The constant movement of shadows in the corners of his eyes was enough to set Wolfwood on edge.

“What about you, Vash?” Meryl finally broke the silence, and Vash startled out of his thoughts as she turned to him.

“Hm?” He’d been quiet, sitting on the arm of the love seat with one leg pulled up close and the other dangling toward the floor, toe angled up and heel scraping the wood as he swung it. He chewed absentmindedly on a meal bar with his chin in his other hand.

“You believe in ghosts, Needle-Noggin?”

He paused mid-chew at the question, swallowed slowly, then broke into an evil grin.

“Of course! This place is haunted for sure,” he raised his hands into claws and leered menacingly over Wolfwood, who scowled. “It’s probably watching us from the shadows right now, just waiting for- hey!” He’d leaned just a little too close, and Wolfwood took the opportunity to shove him off his perch.

“Be serious!”

“I am!” Vash protested from the floor, rubbing his arm dramatically. “There’s really something off about this place.” His expression was set in his usual pout, but from this angle, his eyes were dark and layered in shadow from the flashlight, a glint of gravity behind his words. 

A particularly violent gale rattled the glass of the windows, and they all jumped as sand battered the roof above, the erratic wind patterns dropping out and picking back up again. Every eye stayed on the roof for a breathless moment, then fell to each other with nervous, embarrassed laughter.

“We’ll have to head out soon if we want to beat the worst of the storm,” Meryl broke the silence hesitantly.

“Right,” Milly backed her. “Or make it to the library before it closes.”

“Oh yeah!” Suddenly Meryl was all motion, closing up her notes and pulling Milly up from the couch. “We were going to do more research on this place after viewing it. There was only so much we could find from the office. Local archives should have more: floor plans, newspaper clippings, family histories, you name it.”

She slowed in her packing, turning to them as she closed up her bag.

“Are you guys heading out too? The storm really is getting bad.”

“You all go on ahead,” Vash said. “There’s something I want to check out.”

Wolfwood shot him an odd look, standing and brushing himself off, the dust of the love seat clinging to his black pants.

“I’ve still got a job to finish,” he countered. “Can’t leave a house half-blessed.” Wolfwood wasn’t about to leave Vash here alone, no matter how unsubtly he tried to push him out. Besides, while he didn’t believe in ghosts, he did believe Milly. There was something odd about this house.

—

The sky had grown darker with gathering sand, the air thick with it, and Meryl and Milly gathered scarves around their mouths, wrapping several layers before venturing out.

“Sure you don’t want one of us to walk you there?” Vash offered, his eyes flicking to Wolfwood, then glancing at the dancing shadows beyond the glass of the front window.

“Nonsense,” Meryl waved him off. “We have the toma, you’ll only slow us down.”

“We’ll let you know if we find anything!” Milly assured, muffled as she continued to adjust her scarf over her mouth.

“Oh! Wait then.”

Meryl paused with her hand on the door as Vash stopped them, pulling a small, glimmering stick of metal out of his coat.

“Here,” he held it out to her, and Meryl squinted at it.

"Vash, that's a pen."

"Wrong," he tapped her on the head with it and she glared up at him. "Two-way radio. Press here and speak into this end, and I'll hear you."

"That's amazing!" Milly marveled, leaning in close. "Thank you, Mr. Vash."

"You're welcome," he beamed as Meryl took the tech from him, frowning.

"Will it even work from out that far?" Meryl turned it over in her hand.

"Well... maybe," Vash wiggled his hand. "The storm'll be more a problem for it than the distance. Either way, it's better than you having to ride all the way back here if you find something important."

Meryl made a doubtful noise, but stuck it safely into her coat regardless. With a final wave, she and Milly slipped out the door, already struggling against the wind. It closed with a sharp click, leaving the foyer feeling quiet and empty.

“You sure you want to stay?”

“Can it, Needle-Noggin. Ya ain’t getting rid of me,” Wolfwood turned to walk deeper into the house, and Vash followed. 

“Not scared of the ghost, huh?”

“There’s no ghost,” he rolled his eyes. “But I was hired for a job, and I’m gonna do it.”

Wolfwood left Vash downstairs and started on the third floor, climbing up the rickety fold-out ladder and peeking his head through the floor. His flashlight flickered and he tapped the end, jolting it into working properly, then let the light wander aimlessly around the room. It was just storage. Boxes and old furniture with far more dust than three years could have accumulated. The storm was loud directly under the roof, practically deafening with only a thin layer of wood between him and the wind. He finished his blessing quickly and climbed back down, pushing the ladder up and letting it snap closed against the ceiling. The sudden quiet of the second floor was jarring, every creak of the floorboards echoing down the hall. It was mostly bedrooms, a master, a guest, and two others, a washroom and a reading room as well. Wolfwood took his time as he moved through them, distracted by a nagging at the back of his mind. It was warmer up here, the still air oppressive and thick even as the suns set and the night began to cool outside. It was an odd place to put the bedrooms, he realized, where the heat would rise and smother. Following a hunch, he poked around the master bedroom for a minute, doing a perimeter of the wall until he found it. An air vent.

Central air took a lot of power. The size of the house implied wealth, but this was on another level, especially this far out from town. He filed the thought away and moved on through the dark, blessing as he went. 

He entered the sixth room and frowned, confused as he ran his light along the furniture and the bright, child-like pattern of the comforter. It was mussed, half pulled back and bunched up in the middle. A hairbrush sat on the dresser. The chair was pulled out from where the room’s resident had last stood, mirror angled down to give a better view to someone half-grown. Of course no one had bothered to straighten up. She hadn’t had time to set everything in order before she’d been dragged from her life by men with guns. Had they pulled her from her bed? Broken in in broad daylight, turning a mundane afternoon into the last one she’d ever know? Either way, the gang had gathered them all in that center room and put them to an end for the sake of convenience.

A childhood interrupted and taken.

Wolfwood drowned the forming anger with a sigh, feeling the tightness in his chest loosen and dissipate.

He’d just turned to leave when he heard a soft rustle behind him, a shift of fabric from the utterly empty bedroom. He turned back slowly, light sweeping the room again, just catching a settling fold of blanket. He narrowed his eyes, approaching the bed with silent steps, reaching for the edge. He’d almost made contact when it shifted again, inches from his fingers, and he flinched back just as a shadow shot out from within the depths of the covers, black and fast and angry. It snapped at his hand, drawing blood before darting out of the room with a mournful meow, upset at having its nap disturbed. Wolfwood shook his hand, cursing under his breath, then turned, only to run directly into a tall figure blocking the doorway.

“Hey Wolfwood.”

“Jesus fucking- That’s a damn good way to get shot!”

“You sure are jumpy,” Vash grinned, and it looked positively creepy with the way he was holding his own flashlight directly under his face. “Scared of the ghost?”

“There’s no ghost.”

Vash’s eyes landed on his bleeding hand and he grinned wider, raising an eyebrow.

“Did the ghost bite you?”

“There’s no ghost. Now tell me why you snuck up on me before I bite you.”

“Meryl has something for us, she wanted you to hear too,” he pointed to his earring and leaned in close, their shoulders touching. “Go ahead Meryl, he’s here.”

“Just - - -date. We fou- - strange surv- res- - - land - - - - on.”

“What did she say?”

“They found some strange survey results for the land the house was built on,” Vash translated.

“Strange how?” Wolfwood raised his voice slightly, trying to be heard.

“I can’t - you,” came the muffled reply. “- clos- - .”

Vash leaned in closer to him, nearly ear to ear, looking entirely unbothered by the proximity. 

“HOW- ok, gimme the thing, Spikey,”

“Wh- no! It’s mine!”

“I ain’t havin’ a conversation like this, gimme the-,”

Meryl heaved a deep sighed that crackled like static as Wolfwood bullied the earring away from Vash.

“Are you two finished?”

“Yes,” Wolfwood said decisively, holding the earring evenly between them. “Go ahead. Strange how?”

She could still hear Vash grumbling in the background, but Meryl soldiered on, the signal still unreliable but far clearer than she had been in Vash’s ear.

“They’re sealed, that’s - strange part. Looks like Worston Winsley’s name is on the classifica- order. Worst- Winsley was primary owner of the house, he must - held some sway - the city. We did get the original build request, though, and get this: there’s a -asement.”

“A basement?” 

“Yeah, Milly and I did a pretty thorough once-over during our evalu--, and we didn’t see any -asement. I don’t - if it means anything, just thou- - - -”

The wind got louder outside, shaking the paneling and disturbing the signal. The line went staticky, then cut off with a sharp click.

—

Wolfwood started on one end of the first floor while Vash took the other. The house had seemed large in the daylight, but not unnavigable. With the suns fully set though, and any chance of moonlight blocked by the flying sand, the house became a veritable maze. Wolfwood’s sense of space and direction were damn good, they had to be, but they weren’t immune to the effects of the dark, two of his senses compromised with the roar of the wind and the shadows that lurked just outside the circle of his flashlight. Hallways were longer, the doorways taller, the empty spaces that he’d earlier determined to be useless as cover now hid lurking threats. He flicked his flashlight from point to point, clearing the room with greater focus than he’d afforded the task in the daylight. Only once he’d laid eyes on every corner and nook did he advance, stomping unceremoniously on suspect pieces of floor, peeking behind furniture for covered doors, hidden laundry chutes, anything.

Eventually, he turned his flashlight to a corner and the light failed to follow, stuttering off, then on again, the flashing leaving him more blind than he would have been without the light entirely. He tapped the end, hoping to convince it to work for just a little longer, just enough to get him through the night. It blinked on for a brief second of hope, then died, plunging him into darkness, and no amount of tapping or cursing could convince it to light again. He was debating the options of working with the dim illumination his lighter would offer or just letting his eyes adjust, when he realized he could pick out the soft murmur of words through the howl of the wind. It was muffled, but it was undeniably the cadence of a voice, and it was coming from very, very close. It was right next to him, at the height of a child.

He reached for the light switch in a panic, hand fumbling on the wall, and the bulb clicked on with a gentle hum. He blinked at the sudden light, confused and a little stunned. When the murmuring continued right at his hip, he rubbed his eyes and chuckled, abruptly oriented. He dug for the earring that he’d stuffed in his pocket earlier. 

“Hey, Meryl.”

—

When Vash had searched the lower floor before, he’d been fairly confident he was looking for an access to below the house. He had started to fear that it was outside, but Meryl had given him hope. There was a basement here somewhere. His systematic search had failed, so now he wandered room to room, following his intuition. 

He followed it to the kitchen, a small room in the back of the house, his flashlight wandering aimlessly along the counter tops and walls. He hummed softly to himself as he searched, entirely unbothered by the screaming sandstorm. What mattered was the pocket of safety they had. The walls were sturdy. The insurance girls had made it to shelter. A storm wasn’t something to fear until you were in it. The dark held no worse terror than the daylight, and this house held no worse horror than what he knew lay beneath it.

He had to be getting close. The entrance wasn’t in the kitchen, though. It was probably-

Movement flickered in the corner of his eye, a flash of gray like the twirl of a dress, and he spun to face the doorway, his light revealing only the empty hall.

“Wolfwood?”

It hadn’t been him though. Hadn’t looked remotely like him.

It had looked, for just a glimpse, like-

Like a girl that shouldn’t be there.

Blood rushed to his head, pounding past his ears like thunder, playing harmony to the melody of the howling wind and crashing sand until white noise enveloped him, sharpening to a thin, high note that rang sharp and clear behind his eyes. The turn of the corner came as a surprise, he hadn’t even realized he’d crossed the room, but like the coming of the night, the dispersing of heat against the darkening sky, the doorway yielded slowly and inevitably to the hall beyond. He stepped out to face the watching form of a small, pale figure with wide, sad eyes.

She was waiting for him, and he was frozen, helplessly pinned in place by her beckoning stare. She wanted him to follow. She wanted him to see. Vash couldn’t breathe.

“Help her,” the voice was quiet and shaky, raspy from disuse, and it cut clear through the roar of the storm. Her hair, though brushed, was short and unstyled, and her dress was simple and gray.

Okay. Vash tried to say. Show me. He tried, but to his alarm his voice broke, sound trapped by the tightness in his throat.

The girl just watched him, lost, then turned deeper down the hall, disappearing to the left when she reached the end.

—

Vash didn’t know how long it had been before Wolfwood swam into focus in front of him, features barely visible, but unmistakable, even in the dark. He was still standing in the hall, staring unblinking at the end. He was lightheaded, and he realized his breath was coming unnaturally fast, stuttering in without really filling his lungs. Wolfwood was trying to catch his eye, but he couldn’t tear his vision away from the turn where the girl had disappeared. She needed help. He needed to follow. Why wasn’t he moving?

“Breathe, Vash,” Wolfwood had Vash’s right hand up to his own chest, gripping his palm tight and resting the back against where his lungs filled with air. “It’s okay. Just breathe.”

“I saw her,” he swallowed, forcing his chest to rise and fall rhythmically, mechanically, echoing Wolfwood’s breathing. “The little girl. I saw her.”

“Ghosts don’t exist,” Wolfwood said with grave conviction. “Not like that.” If they did, he would see them every day.

Vash gripped his hand harder. If Nicholas wasn’t who he was, Vash would be breaking bones about now. His eyes stayed forward, as if terrified to remove them from the end of the hall. He was still seeing a little girl there, couldn’t stop seeing her, even when he closed his eyes, another young girl in a sterile white gown who had looked at him, empty and tired, and turned for them to follow and see.

“They do, Nicholas,” Vash said, voice tight, straining to make sound with no air. “I’ve seen them. Not now. But-,” his voice cut out as his gaze finally snapped to meet Wolfwood’s, and Nicholas couldn’t argue with the haunting he saw in Vash’s eyes.

Vash released Wolfwood’s hand with a start, realizing just how hard he’d been gripping it. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he smiled shakily and picked his flashlight up from the ground. Wolfwood just watched him carefully, flexing his hand once before shoving it in his pocket. By the time Vash straightened up, light in hand, his hollow smile was fixed firmly on his face and his voice was steady.

“What did you find?”

Wolfwood only hesitated for a second before slipping into casual conversation.

“Not me, the girls. They found the full floor plans.”

Vash only smiled for another moment until the meaning of the sentence filtered through to him, and the following look of irritation was far more comforting than the empty grin had been.

“…You still have my earring!”

“Relax, Spikey,” Wolfwood rolled his eyes, trying to hide the way his shoulders fell in relief. “I didn’t pocket it on purpose. Here.”

Wolfwood pulled out the glint of metal and replaced it in Vash’s ear with far more care than he’d removed it, leaning in close to find the right spot. He cleared his throat when he was finished, all too aware of Vash’s eyes on him, then turned down the hall.

“Basement’s this way.”

Vash followed.

Chapter Text

Looking at the design instructions, it’s probably set into the floor. Meryl’s voice had crackled over the earring.

Thanks. We’ll let you know if we find anything.

He’d been about to shove the earring back into his pocket when Milly had stopped him, sounding urgent.

There’s one more thing. We found the police report’s full transcript.

—

Wolfwood turned left at the end of the hall toward what had previously been just an odd dead-end. No window, no furniture, no room, just an out-of-place piece of space that went nowhere and could be easily chalked up to bad design. Now, a section of floor had been lifted, leaned against the wall to reveal a steep, winding staircase lit by gently glowing fluorescents that followed it down. Wolfwood whistled low at the sight of the ominous descent.

Vash stepped past him to take lead and they ducked under the floor, following the lights down beneath the foundations. Wolfwood felt it again, the foreboding that surrounded the house, that had kept away bandits and townsfolk alike for three years. His unease grew the deeper they went, an instinctive desire to run that he had to fight every step of the way. He refused to slow, matching Vash stair for stair as the pit wound its way downward. Once, he thought he saw a flash of movement from below them, peeking out before darting off again just where the curve of the stairway disappeared beneath itself.

Wires and power lines twisted their way up through the center of the spiral, then off into a small tunnel that no doubt branched and connected to different parts of the house above. Slowly, the wood-built walls gave way to metal, the jagged and buried sides of the crashed ship that they were descending into. As deep as it had looked from the top, it wasn’t long before the pit opened up into a room, and they set foot on solid ground. The floor was slanted slightly, but walkable. Still, the angle gave everything an uncanny tilt, shadows falling in unexpected places, set by the soft, distracting hum of the string of yellow lights above their heads. Vash kept moving, eerily silent, following the running line of cables and wires that still hung from the ceiling. Wolfwood tried to get a glimpse of his expression, but the halls of the ship were thin, cold metal pressing close and restricting their movement. Unable to walk at his side, Wolfwood was stuck staring at his back and the tense set of his shoulders. 

He saw it again ahead of them, a flash of movement, peeking out then disappearing again around a corner, as if making sure they were following. They reached the edge where the cables turned, where the flash of gray waited, and they rounded it to see the girl, wide eyed and terrified, standing determinedly in front of a metal door, as if on guard. She shifted to her other foot, uncertain, hands gripping the edge of her dress tightly. The dead had no need to be so anxious.

Wolfwood knelt down, putting himself level with her.

“Aida? Aida Winsley?”

Her eyes widened at the sound of her name, glued to Wolfwood as she nodded.

“What are you doing down here, Aida?” he spoke low and calm, hands resting in full view on his knees and careful not to crowd her. “Did you want to show us something?”

She nodded, opening her mouth to speak, then hesitating, humming out a few sounds first as if testing her voice. Finally, words scraped out, quiet and scared.

“…help her,” she pleaded, eyes unblinking as they watched Wolfwood, then flicked up to Vash. “Please. Help her. I don’t know how.”

“Help who, Aida?” Wolfwood asked.

Wolfwood finally heard Vash release his breath behind him, then felt him kneel down as well.

“We won’t hurt you,” he promised. “And we won’t hurt her either. Will you open the door?”

She studied them intensely, piercing and suspicious even through her fear, then abruptly spun and pulled open the door behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at them, then continued on down the short hall it led to. They stood and followed, a good distance behind.

“How did you know?” Vash murmured.

“Knew there was a second daughter when I found two kids rooms upstairs. The insurance girls found her name.”

There was another little girl. Meryl had told him, reading out loud. Rivera Winsley, 36-year-old mother of two, engineer, found dead. Gunshot wound to the head. Worston Winsley, 42-year-old father of two, engineer, found dead. Gunshot wound to the head. Daughter Neloma Winsley, 12 years old, found dead. Gunshot wound to the head. Daughter Aida Winsley, 9 years old, whereabouts unknown.

“What I don’t get is how she’s still alive after all this time,” Wolfwood wondered aloud as the walkway opened up. The room felt smaller than it was, crammed full of dragged-in equipment, most of it heavily modified and jerry-rigged to a large bulb at the end. The glass orb loomed over the space, thin cracks spiderwebbing along its surface, and curled-up tight at the bottom was a broken creature that seemed all legs and feathers. The casing above that should have housed her was split open, like it had hatched, or bloomed, and dropped her unceremoniously to the glass below. She lay unmoving at the bottom of the support system, as if asleep, a mess of too many limbs at unnatural angles. Even Wolfwood knew this wasn’t right, and it felt perverse to see, something ethereal and otherworldly brought to the level of the mundane.

“They were keeping a plant,” Wolfwood breathed. “All to themselves.”

Vash hummed in acknowledgment and took a step toward her, then seemed to think better of it and turned to one of the monitoring panels. He examined it, flicking a few of the switches and reading the results as he did, eyes returning to the plant every few seconds.

“This support system’s half malfunction, half duct-tape,” he said, frowning as he touched a couple of controls. “It must have been severely damaged in the crash. To get any output at all would have required constant maintenance.”

“Meryl said they were both engineers,” Wolfwood offered.

“They haven’t been here in years, though,” Vash finally turned from the machines toward the bulb. “She’s been running without any real input or support,” he just watched her, hesitant to disturb the fragile rest she’d made for herself.

“I don’t know how to work it…,” a small voice admitted from a corner of the room. “But when I hid down here, she fed me anyways. I think it’s been hurting her.”

Aida’s voice startled the both of them, and they both looked to where she stood next to a mattress and a pile of pillows and blankets against the only free space along the wall. A few books lay in the pile, a couple of glass bottles full of water, and next to it, a small bin of food waste, apple cores and banana skins, some darker bits of bread crust. She glanced between them, nervous now that all eyes were on her, then turned hopefully to Vash.

“She trusts you. She says you can help-,” her voice broke at the sudden attempt at volume as she tried to speak up.

“You can…,” Vash’s eyes widened and glanced back at the plant, then to Aida with a kind of awe. “Can you understand her?” She shook her head though, then cleared her throat and tried again, quieter.

“Not really, but… she tells me what she’s feeling sometimes. She wants help. Please help her,” her voice croaked and whispered, cutting out in odd places. Vash didn’t answer, but turned toward the bulb, expression unreadable. He looked sadly at the incomprehensible form, huddled at the bottom of the containment. 

Vash rested his hand gently on the glass.

“Hey sister,” he whispered under his breath, so low that Wolfwood wouldn’t have caught it if he didn’t have the movement of his lips to go by. He felt like he was intruding on something private, but then the form shifted and he couldn’t look away.

She pulled herself up slowly, called by the touch, and as she unfurled herself Wolfwood could see the black hair that hung down limp and thin in front of her eyes. She looked first to Aida, gentle and slow. Then her attention drifted up and settled on Wolfwood. She pressed her hands up against the glass, and he had never seen any emotion so strong on a plant before. Not one in a bulb. He'd rarely seen them out of their spheres at all, and when he had it was always a look of impenetrable neutrality, maybe quiet curiosity if you stretched the imagination. The only thing he saw in her was fury.

“Needle-noggin,” Wolfwood warned, stepping to the side instinctively to cover the girl.

He could feel the grasp of death looming from her, and his limbs were frozen under her gaze. The unease he’d felt earlier sharpened into something terrifyingly familiar, something he’d only felt once before, and he’d been holding a gun to its head. His heart beat so quickly it was shaking in his chest, an automatic, uncontrollable response to the feeling of being lost out alone in a storm, small and fragile and entirely vulnerable to something so much larger than himself. Like being seen clear through by the eyes of God. Overwhelming. Mortifying.

"He won’t hurt her,” Vash said firmly, almost chastising. “I promise. Look at me?"

The plant turned her gaze to him and Vash sighed in relief when she mimicked his gesture, raising a hand to meet him, palm to palm. The fury cut out, and Wolfwood lowered the gun he hadn’t realized he’d raised, his heartbeat starting to slow as the emotional attack withdrew.

"You have a story to tell, right? Tell me," Vash raised his other hand, then hesitated and turned to Wolfwood with a look of impenetrable neutrality, quiet concern.

"You don’t have to stay," he offered. "This might be a lot."

Wolfwood shook his head, swallowing.

"I ain't leaving you."

Vash hesitated, but eventually nodded gratefully, then glanced at Aida who was watching him, full of hopeful expectation. He pressed his forehead against the glass. Nothing happened at first, and when the echoes of her story did reach Wolfwood they were faint, emotional spillover.

Love.

Grief.

Fury.

What Vash felt was different, clearer, a full picture of the tragedy that had played out in the house above and the ship below. He saw them. He was the last person who would.

The tall man, broad and jovial. He’d found her where she rested alone underground, the sole survivor so many years after the fire and the falling and the fear. He had made this room for her, soothed some of the damage that had been done.

The tall woman, bright and quick. She visited often, tinkering with her machines. She would have her make food. And water. And power. But every time she left, she left her in better condition than when she’d come, working until everything was just right for her.

The two little ones. She would see them, occasionally. They were chased out often by the tall ones, laughing, like a game. Sometimes they would sneak in alone and press their tiny hands to the glass, watching her with wide eyes. Always, she could feel them above her. Hers to care for.

She felt it when they were slaughtered.

The feathers of the plant had expanded, filling the space of the bulb, contorting and twisting in pain.

The waves of emotion grew stronger, verging on overwhelming, and Vash frowned against the glass until the intensity retreated, the curling of the feathers smoothing out of their tense spirals. He was soothing her as she tried to rage uncontrolled.

She had raged uncontrolled, then. And the men with guns had fallen, the men who had harmed those in her care.

The little one had been with her, though.

She would keep her safe.

She would keep her safe.

Keep her safe.

Keep her safe.

Keep her safe.

Vash flinched, then pulled back slightly and let one of his hands drop.

“You should take her out of here,” his eyes drifted to Wolfwood’s, distant, but full of concern. 

Things had taken a turn for the worse, black running off the plant’s skin in rivulets, black dripping up from her eyes, defying gravity, black like clotted blood, black like rot. The machines had started to spark and whine, protesting the fluctuations in power they were being subjected to. 

Aida made a noise of distress beside him.

“What do you mean?” She looked between them, alarmed. “I’m not leaving. I’m not going to hide this time. I have to help her. Please, she wants help! I’m not leaving until you help her!”

“Aida… she wants me to help you,” Vash knelt down as Aida’s expression broke, distraught. “She’s been running on empty for a while. What she needs right now is to know you’re safe. Can you do that for her?”

“I can’t just leave her,” she whispered. “She’s my family. She’s- I won’t leave her all alone.”

“I’ll stay with her,” he promised. “I’ll do everything I can for her.”

Aida’s jaw quivered, chest spasming with unvoiced sobs. Finally, she turned and darted to the glass, pressing herself to it like she’d seen Vash do.

“Thank you,” she said, thick with tears, eyes squeezed shut as if trying to force the thought through. Then she turned desperately to Vash, gasping in air to try to get the words out. “Does she know? Tell her I love her, does she know that I love her?”

“She knows,” he assured her. “She can hear you.”

The plant inside stilled, the convulsing feathers coming to a halt as she tilted her head toward Aida, a silent nudge, an acknowledgment, a goodbye. Aida pressed a soft kiss to the glass, then backed away reluctantly, hands curled into fists at her sides. She turned suddenly and rushed down the hall all at once without looking back.

Wolfwood looked to Vash.

“You coming?” 

“I’m right behind you,” Vash said, a gentle smile on his face. It wasn’t real, but it wasn’t trying to be real, a simple but entirely opaque mask for whatever emotion was roiling behind it. It left no room for argument.

— 

By the time Wolfwood reached the top of the steps, the lights of the house had started to flicker violently. He could hear sparking within the walls and smell smoke drifting from another room. Aida was nowhere in sight.

“Shit.”

She could be anywhere in the house, and she knew it far better than he did.

“Aida!” he called, sprinting down the hall. “Aid-,”

She wasn’t hiding, though. She stood in the foyer, the door already open, staring out at the whipping wind and barren sands. The storm had mostly settled while they’d been in the ship, but it was still dark and cold, an unforgiving landscape under open sky.

“Aida?” Wolfwood called as he approached, trying not to startle her. She didn’t acknowledge him, but when he reached her shoulder she murmured under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear.

“I’m leaving them again. I left them and I hid. I didn’t do anything. And now I’m leaving them again.”

“You’re alive now because you hid,” Wolfwood said. “There’s nothing wrong with hiding when you need to. And there’s nothing wrong with leaving. You’re not leaving them behind. You’re leaving them to rest. They’ll still be with you in the ways that matter.”

She finally looked up at him, eyes red-rimmed but dry.

“I’m glad I got to say goodbye to her,” she said. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to anyone else.”

Wolfwood wanted to give her more time, didn’t want to rush this, but he could hear creaks and pops from the back of the house as wood splintered, and the smell of smoke had grown thicker.

“Anything you need? If you promise to stay right here, I’ll run and get it.”

She shook her head though, staring out at the empty sands.

“’S just a house,” she whispered.

He waited until he could hear the roar of proper flames before shrugging off his jacket and handing it to her.

“It’s cold out there. And put the sleeve up to your face or you’ll breathe in sand.”

From a distance, the house was brilliant against the dark sky. The windows flashed and flickered, power surges wracking the electrical infrastructure. A subtle glow had started at the back of the house, and the shape of the smoke could be traced through the silhouette of lost stars. Wolfwood watched the open doorway anxiously as the lights cut out completely and the flames licked higher. They overtook the roof, the heat shattering one of the front windows. He cursed and had just started back for the house when he caught a glimpse of red stumbling down the porch stairs.

Vash made it to the gate before catching himself, doubling over with his hand on the rail as he coughed. Wolfwood reached him, and even so far from the now towering blaze, he could feel the heat scorch against his skin. He pulled Vash’s arm over his shoulder and walked him back to Aida.

They collapsed into the sand, Vash still trying to smother his coughing, and waited as the house burned. It took the few hours that were left of the night, until the horizon began to glow with the promise of dawn. By the time the first of the suns touched the sky, the framework was crumbling slowly to embers, the wind had stilled to all but the most gentle breeze, and Aida had curled up next to Wolfwood, exhausted, disappearing almost entirely into the jacket wrapped around her.

Vash’s face was clearer now in the light, soot marking his cheeks, dark circles under his eyes, drained. Wolfwood knew better than to ask what had happened down there. He wouldn’t get an answer, and it felt invasive besides. Vash noticed him staring and smiled.

“You burned anywhere?” Wolfwood tried, reaching for something to say. It was a little late to be asking, but better than never.

“Hm? Oh. No, I’m fine. Just breathed in a little smoke,” he laughed. Wolfwood couldn’t read everything about Vash, not when he really wanted to hide, but he knew him well enough to pick up on a few things. And he knew intimately how grief settled in the eyes.

“…I’m sorry,” he offered, genuine enough that it couldn’t be mistaken. Vague enough to hide behind. Vash’s eyes ticked wider, just barely, his smile freezing fragile on his face. It didn’t matter how many times Wolfwood proved himself capable of it, Vash never seemed to grow used to being seen. He looked back toward the remains of the house, wrists resting on his knees.

“Thank you.”

It wasn’t long before footsteps approached from over the horizon, three tomas riders. The two in the lead navigated the sands expertly, leaving their rear companion to fumble his way after them, tugging his tomas into something resembling a straight line as it tried to veer off every two steps.

“I’m glad you two are okay!” Milly called as soon as she was close enough, pulling her tomas to a halt. “We could see the fire from town, it was really impressive.”

Meanwhile, Meryl was dismounting, marching closer as she dug in her jacket. Vash’s eyes went wide.

“You-!”

He didn’t bother dodging the radio-pen flying directly at him, and Meryl’s aim was dead-on. It smacked into his forehead, and he collapsed back with a squawk of complaint.

“’Best behavior’ my left foot! You burned it down! We left you alone for one night and you burned it down!”

“Hey now,” Wolfwood stepped to his defense. “There were extenuating circumstances this time.”

“You’re not any better!” Meryl rounded on him. “You- …oh,” she caught sight of Aida, who had begun to stir next to him.

Houston finally caught up, reigning the unruly tomas to a halt before nearly falling off in his attempt to dismount. He wasn’t helped by the fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off the house for the entire process. He took a few steps toward it, mouth agape.

“You- I- I’ll admit this wasn’t what I expected when I asked for an exorcism,” Houston said, more stunned than angry.

Wolfwood finally picked himself up from the ground, dusting off his pants as he did.

“We had a change of objective, Mr. Winsley.”

“A change of…,” Houston trailed off as Aida rose behind Wolfwood, jacket wrapped tightly around her like armor. “Who is this?”

“Houston, meet Aida Winsley.”

“Aida? But…,” he stared at Wolfwood, then glanced down at Aida, then back up at him. He stuttered through the start of several phrases, then gave up on questions, removing his hat instead. “I send you in for a blessing and you pull off a resurrection… What sort of priest are you, anyway?”

Wolfwood’s eyebrows twitched as he heard Vash snort in laughter behind him, and it took everything he had to stay in his role.

“I can recommend an orphanage. Not the wealthiest place, but they’re good people.”

“What?” Houston looked horrified. “Don’t be ridiculous, she belongs with family! I mean-,” he seemed immediately embarrassed at his outburst. “Well to be honest I’m not confident I’m equipped for it. But we’re a large group. Charlotte has several children, I’m sure she’d be happy to have her…” he trailed off and shook his head. “We can figure out the details later. For now,” he turned to Aida. “How would you like breakfast? There’s a festival going on today, plenty to pick from. You can have whatever you like.”

“…ok,” her voice was quiet, but steady as she stepped out from behind Wolfwood. 

They started back for town, setting Aida up on the tomas to ride while the rest of them walked. 

“Well, it looks like we found your ghost, Milly,” Meryl said quietly as they trailed behind, leading their toma. Milly looked at her, surprised.

“Oh, that’s not her, ma’am.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s not the girl I saw. I’m quite sure,” Milly nodded to herself, ticking off the points on her fingers. ”The little girl I saw was wearing a new blue dress, and she had longer hair, and she disappeared to nowhere, remember?”

Meryl frowned.

A few moments later, Aida turned on the tomas and waved, looking at a point in the distance. Meryl spun to the house, and before her eyes focused she thought she saw a flash of blue on the landscape of golds and reds. It was gone the instant she tried to look for it. She shook her head self-mockingly and turned back forward.