Archive of Our Own

 

It’s but a few hours before Unset, and Tzila motors up Stationary Hill on her trusty (still a loaded word) monocycle, calling out and returning hellos from residents as she passes. The monocycle is firmly a vintage now, but with Goe and Tzila’s care it still runs a treat.

 

Tzila brakes to a stop before the Black Candle Cabaret, the bocular engine exhaling wearily as she dismounts. The building, Fold-twisted yet homey, stretches before her in all its glory. The Black Candle is now just a cabaret, co-run by Sherman and Emmett. While it has garnered a reputation for being particularly helpful to off-kilter ex-Trustee refugees, the Breach is as gone as the Trust. These days, the Black Candle’s bar and burlesque shows are just that and nothing more.

 

It’s been a few months since Tzila was here— she’s a bit of a wanderer. Midst is growing and expanding beyond the settlement of Stationary Hill, and she’s found good work in guiding expeditions out into the desert. It’s helpful to have someone who’s been on the islet for over a decade.

 

It’s even more helpful having a witch.

 

Tzila takes off her big, wide-brimmed hat and wipes sweat from her brow. She’s grown up from a tough twelve year old into an absolutely killer-looking badass. She wears her hair in long dreads, pulled back from her face into two buns at the nape of her neck. Her loose desert garb doesn’t fully hide how defined her arms and shoulders are, toned by years of fierce expeditions and the occasional monster hunting. Her dark eyes seem to take in every detail around her all at once, scanning the world with an artist’s gaze. And hanging on her utility belt is a small sketchbook and a leather pouch: old, well-handled, lovingly and often repaired.

 

To be perfectly frank, she looks kind of like a younger Lark. Well, she looks like Lark save for a distinct lack of a Fold-scar… and how easily her eyes and mouth crease into a smile, like they are now as she steps into the cool dark interior of the Black Candle Cabaret.

 

Sherman, in his usual spot behind the bar, immediately looks up at the familiar silhouette in the doorway. “Tzila!” He strides towards her, and just like that she’s a kid again, wrapped up safely in her dad’s arms. He slightly pulls away enough to look her up and down for injuries, scars, something wrong. Once he’s satisfied nothing is amiss, he pulls her in tighter again. Tzila knows her dad isn’t… thrilled about the safety of her line of work, but he trusts her to handle herself. She’s a badass, and was taught by the best.

 

“Hi Dad,” the famed monster slayer says into her dad’s shoulder. “I’m fine, I’m fine, you can let go now.”

 

He doesn’t for at least another ten seconds, but then again, neither does she.

 

“You’re here for the Haunting?” He asks her later, once she’s sitting at the warped bar in the same spot she did when she was twelve. However, an improvement since then is that he serves her alcohol now, as he is currently doing, mixing her a drink in a kaleidoscopic Fold-altered glass. There is no drinking age in Stationary Hill. If there were one, she would surely meet it. That still feels a bit weird to both of them. The drink is good, strong stuff though. Aw, Dad.

 

Sherman does not need to ask her if she’s here for the Haunting. He knows the answer already. It’s just a formality, he’s being polite, he’s being a good dad. The Haunting is annual, always on the same date. Tzila comes every single year, even goes out of her way to. So she just hums a quick affirmative and downs her drink, a bit too fast based on his reproving look.

 

“Stay safe.” Sherman tells her.

 

“I always do.” She answers back, and he snorts. “And you know she’s not dangerous to me.”

 

His eyes tighten incrementally, lost in memory for a moment. “Yeah,” he says quietly. Then, a bit softer, “I don’t just mean physically safe.”

 

After a too-silent moment has passed, he asks about her travels, and she launches into an epic and entirely true tale about diverting a swarm of jellyghouls away from a family of settlers with nothing but some sharpened colored pencils launched out of her crossbow. Sherman settles back to listen with the fond smile he’s always saved for her stories. Then it’s a blur as Bets and Walter run in to have a loud reunion, then Hieronymous comes by to say hi, and she has to tell the whole thing again, and Landlord (older, slower, but still alive and thriving thank you very much) shuffles in for pets, and basically she doesn’t get a moment to herself until Unset.

 

Tzila is sitting at a desk in her room on the top floor of the Black Candle Cabaret when the Fold washes over, casting the room into that living darkness. She quickly flicks on a Fold-safe light, listening for a moment to the faint chatter of patrons and the warm-up notes of the band that drift up from downstairs. Then she steels herself, cleanly rips a page of her sketchbook out, sets the paper on the desk, and casts the contents of her leather pouch out on top of it.

 

Tzila does not read fortunes quite the way Lark did. Granted, her first steps are very similar, as she sits back for a moment to gaze at the random scattering of the baubles and trinkets. You might recognize some of them from Lark— the bird skull, the sharp quartz piece, the small, heavy piece of metal. But some of them would be new to you, ones Tzila has added herself. A neon-splashed red rock from Vermillion County. A long whisker from Landlord. A broken gear from a foldmersible engine. A  scrap of a beautiful red fabric. Tzila looks over it all with a critical eye—then she takes out a pencil.

 

Let’s take a closer look at Tzila’s divination together in that way we do, shall we? Indulge us for a moment.

 

It’s been a steep learning curve. A lot of trial and error—mostly error. Can you blame her? After a magical smackdown with Tzila’s dad’s old boss, her babysitter-murderer-friend person just kind of hoisted this pouch of junk onto her, answered absolutely none of her questions, and vanished into the Fold-ether with a fucking smile. Tzila saw Lark fortune-tell a grand total of twice, and Lark was bullshitting it to various degrees both times. It’s not like Lark left behind an instruction manual—“when the stick is on top of the lumpy rock that means the moon will explode, but when the lumpy rock is on top of the stick that means you should have toast for breakfast”—none of that shit. So Tzila was stuck figuring it out on her own from scratch.

 

She tried it for the first time on the monocycle trip back from Vermillion County, only twenty minutes after Lark had vanished into the Fold. It was not the most conducive environment. The Unlight blazed bright, she was bouncing all over the place in the sidecar, she was sweaty and tired and distracted by the rank smell of the monocycle’s exhaust gases. Still, she couldn’t wait, and carefully emptied the contents of the bag out onto her lap— where they proceeded to shake and rattle and bounce all over the place too. The weird egg thing nearly sproinged clean out of the sidecar, and Tzila only caught it in the nick of time. Gross. That maybe was not the best idea. Tzila tried to look at it all with open, accepting eyes, to see the patterns of the future in the layout of the items. All she saw was a bunch of crap flying around. The big chunk of quartz flew up and wacked her in the chin, almost blindingly reflective in the light of day. Tzila really hoped that wasn’t a portent to her future.

 

(Spoiler: it wasn’t. There was absolutely nothing to read in the nonsense dumping of a bunch of junk Tzila just did. Sometimes a weird diseased-looking egg is just a weird diseased-looking egg.)

 

Tzila tried again later that night, just before Unset. It was definitely a little better that time around. She was stationary, for one. She sprawled on her bed, pouring her attention over every detail and direction the objects were in. She lightly tapped the small, heavy piece of metal, careful not to disturb its position. Lark had called it “The Burden.” The bird’s skull was flipped upside down, and the Burden was cradled inside its empty socket. That looked important. Was that important? Tzila didn’t have a damn clue.

 

Tzila tried to… she didn’t know. Reach out? With her mind? Connect with the message the… cosmos? Was giving her? What a load of shit. If Lark hadn’t been… Lark, Tzila would have passed this whole thing off as garbage. She wasn’t getting a damn thing from any of this.

 

Then the Fold swept over the room, draping everything in that warm, living darkness.

 

And Tzila felt… something. Not a lot. Nothing substantial. But like how you would faintly feel the slight tickle of gossamer if you ran your hand through an errant spiderweb string, Tzila felt something akin to that brush over her mind. She couldn’t delve deeper into it, couldn’t parse the feeling out into something substantial… but it stayed with her. Almost soothing. Looking out for her.

 

Okay, Tzila thought. Apparently reading fortunes was a Fold-only activity. She could work with that.

 

She did the same thing every night for the next week—as soon as Fold hit, out came the leather pouch. Every night, she got the same feeling, some form of… being connected. A gentle vibration. A glow of warmth. But she could get no further, and honestly that was getting frustrating as hell.

 

Tzila wished Lark was there. She wished Lark would show her what to do. But no one had seen Lark since the Weepe fight. Tzila was a sensible girl. She literally saw Lark vanish right before her eyes—that didn’t seem like something even Lark could bounce back from. Still, Tzila could not convince herself that Lark was dead. Lark was an invulnerable figure, a constant presence. Lark just falling off this mortal coil no big deal felt like a cosmic oversight.

 

Tzila sighed, and gave one more weary glance to the arrangement that night. Everything was spread in wild disarray, but the Burden still ended up cradled by the bird skull. It had been every single time she’d tried. That really seemed like that should be significant.

 

(Yeah, sidenote: it was.)

 

If only there was a further step Tzila could take. Something that made sense to her, that could make this whole process her own. A unique skill she had, or something she liked, something that could actually connect her to these inherited pieces on a personal level. Yeah, if only there were something like that.

 

Come on Tzila. You got this.

 

Tzila picked up a pencil and started sketching.

 

She intended to draw Lark, actually. Tzila was missing her and Lark’s distinctive silhouette was always pretty fun to try to capture, but as soon as Tzila put her pencil to paper, some little, previously dormant thing in her brain just clicked on.

 

And Tzila connected with the spiderweb.

 

Her hand began to move on instinct, swiping long, assured pencil-strokes onto the blank paper. Her gaze never once looked at the page, instead pinned to the assortment of baubles laid out before her. Her mindless sketching definitely fell into the “abstract art” category—it made no sense, just errant sweeps of curving lines and jagged strokes. It was almost reminiscent of a wind or ocean current map, or maybe a heap of spaghetti noodles. If seen by an outsider, it would have been perceived as some weird modern art thing. To Tzila, it was an outline of how everything fit together—each bauble and trinket represented something important, and Tzila’s sketch demonstrated where each had been, was going, and related to one another. Tzila sketched, watched, and listened.

 

We interrupt your regularly scheduled plot with expository in-text citations. According to the 3rd Edition of Bernhard and Gottle’s Introduction to Cosmological Reasonings, “While it is not understood if Fold has a capacity for sentience, it is believed to be capable of a kind of “free will” as it may respond to the same stimuli in a variety of different ways” (Bernhard and Gottle, 620).

 

Translation: no one knows the fuck how the Fold works but it’s ALIVE. It’s got a consciousness in some strange, alien, unfathomable way.

 

Now, it’s above our paygrade to confirm or deny any Fold-theories here. But we would like to remind you of something: a new, once-human consciousness has recently joined the greater being of the Fold. You and Tzila knew it as Lark.

 

Back to Tzila in the midst (hah) of discovering her occult powers.

 

Tzila’s eyes were locked on the Burden cradled by the bird skull, while her hand drew something like an ouroboros. The gentle sensation in her mind grew and blossomed, unfurling like a flower, draping over her like a warm blanket. It was as if she was spontaneously developing an ear that only heard the whispers of an all-knowing darkness. The feeling was overwhelming yet perfectly natural, a sixth sense waking up.

 

After a moment, Tzila was able to parse… emotions, vibrating up to her along this expanding spiderweb. Emotions foreign to her own, from something—someone— else. Not an intruder. Just a presence. A somewhat intimidating, yet strangely sentimental presence. An almost familiar one to Tzila, even.

 

Tears began to well in the corners of Tzila’s eyes, as her heart recognized what her sensible brain refused to.

 

“Lark?” She whispered aloud.

 

No, not quite Lark. More like… the memory of Lark. The imprint of her. A memory box of her essence bereft of the context of her person.

 

Tzila reached out with that sixth sense, and grasped the Fold’s preservation of what made Lark Lark.

 

She met resistance. Yeah, that seemed par for the course. It was fucking Lark, even as a Fold-memory she impeded any attempt to be known. Tzila felt like she was sticking her hands into a briar patch. Prickly, harsh, and grating, practically screaming “keep out.” A first line of defense thrown up to protect the vulnerable insides.

 

If there was anyone who could pass that barrier, it was Tzila. She managed to vault over that defense in Lark’s life despite all of the older woman’s attempts to the contrary, so a few brambles weren’t going to stop her in the after. After a moment Lark’s presence seemed to… recognize her, and acquiesce. Like in Sleeping Beauty, the thorns retreated and a path revealed. Tzila followed it down to the core emotions of Lark’s person.

 

The first thing Tzila registered was an all-consuming fear.

 

Intense, overwhelming paranoia flared out in every direction, but especially upwards. Nowhere was safe. No one could be trusted. Any moment, a spotlight could beam down upon her and the hounds would be unleashed. Run, run, stick to the shadows, stay alive, stay alive.

 

Logically, Tzila knew Lark—Clara Mire—was afraid of the Trust. She was Public Enemy Number One to them, they wanted to kill her: she ran, they chased. Tzila just hadn’t been able to fathom how bone-deep it went or how exhausting it was to carry. Lark had seemed fearless to her, but Tzila had never felt such terror in her life.

 

To Tzila’s relief, the fear gradually receded, and a warmer emotion began to tentatively fill the space. It didn’t quite seem to know what to do with itself, but it existed nonetheless. While the fear was flashy and intense, this emotion was more like a constant thrum of an engine—an ever-present background noise that was louder than you initially realized when you focused on it.

 

At the very core of Lark’s person, there was love.

 

As Tzila listened, the love began to individualize and lead in distinct directions. There was a general fondness and feeling of home associated with the islet of Midst and the little hut-house-shack in Vermillion County. An interested, tentative amity with a little desire sprinkled in towards Sherman (which, ew, Tzila thought). A begrudging and confused but no less genuine affection for Phineas Thatch, wherever he was now. An old, comfortable companionship with Landlord.

 

Then there was a love that seemed… unsure, or scared of itself. It was enormous, bursting at the seams, but acted like it was unsuccessfully trying to fold itself smaller. It was fiercely protective, borderline unconditional, and aimed directly at… Tzila.

 

Aimed at Tzila?

 

Lark… loved her?

 

Not just a little, but… a lot. A lot. More than Tzila could have possibly imagined behind her old babysitter’s impassive eyes.

 

The waves of Lark’s love crashed over Tzila, like a dam that finally broke loose. Tears welled in the corners of Tzila’s eyes. She still didn’t know exactly what to think of Lark anymore after everything she did, but Tzila knew she loved Lark back. And that Lark wasn’t coming back. So Tzila silently wept her grief and cradled the remnants of Lark’s love left unexpressed close to her chest.

 

It was because of this tumultuous grief-love-pain-joy torrent that Tzila even managed to recognize the final insight the Fold shared with her about Lark.

 

Buried beneath everything else, past the prickly exterior and the fear and all of her other relationships, there was a highly potent mixture of grief and love. Almost identical to what Tzila was personally feeling herself.

 

This one didn’t seem to have a person or thing it was directed towards like the other ones— or if it did, whoever it was aimed at didn’t seem to be in any place that Lark could fathom. So Lark felt it at everything, everywhere, all the time, this… feeling of profound loss for an increasingly distant yet warm memory that Lark carried with her like a scar.

 

Tzila wished she could know what or who did this to Lark. But Tzila wasn’t in any place to ask, and Lark in no place to answer. All that she could do was listen.

 

Tzila listened, and the Fold told her about Lark. What once was Lark told Tzila about herself. Just because it was an echo didn’t mean that the sound wasn’t there. Tzila accepted it all with rapt attention, her mental image of Lark filling in with brighter colors with every passing moment. This woman who had for so long seemed to only possess two emotions—“gruff” and “cool”—was hiding an internal wonderland of insecurities and fondnesses and oddities.

 

Eventually, the intensity simmered down, and Tzila was left with tear tracks on her cheeks, a powerful connection to the Fold, and an unexplainable intuition that Lark may have hidden a pistol underneath a particular floorboard of Goe’s GGGGGGGGGGGG, and that it might be a good beginner-friendly gun to learn with if Tzila was interested.

 

Tzila was in fact interested. The next day, when she went to check, the pistol was there exactly where she thought it would be. In the strange layout of the garage, the pistol and its hiding spot was miraculously untouched by any tearror mutations.

 

It all went from there.

 

Tzila grew up rapidly (far too rapidly for Sherman’s sentimental heart, in fact), the loving and strange presence of the Fold a constant presence from that point forward.

 

Tzila became enraptured by the wilds of the desert that lay outside of Stationary Hill. Whenever her dad would let her (and sometimes even when he wouldn’t) she’d go out into the desert and get into all sorts of adventures. She practiced with the pistol and eventually the rifle, firing lazerbeams into cacti with an aim that improved by the day. Sherman taught her how to drive the monocycle, and she’d drag Bets and Walter out to run figure-eights in it, kicking up red dust while the three of them screamed in alternating delight and fear. She’d go on her own independent desert expeditions, illustrating the insects, animals, and plants of the desert with a naturalist’s precision— her sketchbook began to resemble if a zoology textbook had a sense of humor. When she needed spare parts, she’d forage for scraps in the ruins of Lark’s cabin and the Baron’s foldmersible.

 

She cast her divination set when she felt she needed to, and over time and practice she became an adept foreseer— as her art skills improved, so too did her readings. Over the years, her insights became sharper and more frequent, though they were always strongest during Fold. She learned that it was easier to draw if she set the paper down first and cast the pieces on top of it, information could become clearer if she used colored pencils, and that she should not eat cheese before doing a reading. On one memorable occasion, she gleaned the true identity of Hieronymous, her other father, all on her own— the night before Sherman and Harry intended to come clean. That had made for an awkward and interesting conversation, to put it mildly.

 

Tzila had always been rightly known as a clever and mature girl, but soon the descriptions tough as nails and stubborn as hell and uncannily lucky began to join her reputation. Granted, the whole town of Stationary Hill could be called uncannily lucky after the events of Weepe’s defeat.

 

Ever since the night of Tzila’s first true reading, Stationary Hill was haunted by a strange ghost.

 

Sometimes during Fold, a Stationarian would see the striking silhouette of an intense-looking woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat walking around town for a few moments, before she would vanish into the darkness without a trace. It would be fucking terrifying if everyone in the town didn’t know exactly who she was, and if odd and vaguely benevolent things didn’t happen in her wake.

 

Goe saw the woman one night as she stared out into the desert wastes, holding herself in a predatory stance. He’d blinked a few times and then she was just… gone. The only sign she’d ever been there at all was a faint swirling in the current of the Fold. The next day, Goe found the corpse of a blinding in the exact same spot the woman had been. It must have wandered too close to town— the residents of the outskirts were incredibly lucky it died before it sensed their lights and went on the hunt. No one could identify exactly how the blinding died— there were no visible wounds on it.

 

One time a Fold-safe light burst in the Cabaret, flickering and beginning to rile up dangerous tearrors. Sherman was desperately trying to put out the ensuing tearror-fire, nearly getting seared in the process, when he looked up and saw a familiar silhouette darkening the Cabaret doorway. His heart squeezed painfully at the sight. In his distraction, the tearror-fire lept forward, on a collision course with his entire arm.  A split second before it burned him, the tearror mutated and the fire simply… ceased to be hot. The flames harmlessly licked his hand, feeling almost soothing against his skin. When Sherman looked up again, the silhouette wasn’t there anymore.

 

Walter’s mother was working with a team of builders to erect a statue of Saskia in front of the post-office. One Fold she was chiseling its pedestal when a flicker of light caught her eye. She turned her head and saw a shadowed woman staring at the half-completed statue, casually smoking a cigarette. Walter’s mother began to walk towards her to ask her what she needed, when a large chunk of stone crashed down behind her— exactly where she had just been working. If she hadn’t begun walking towards the figure, it would have crushed her. When Walter’s mother got over her shock and thought to turn back and thank the woman, all that was left of her was the burnt-out stub of a cigarette crushed into the ground.

 

Some asshole moved to town, a rando from the Un. He had this grand scheme of striking it rich by marketing the tearror-warped town of Stationary Hill as a fucked-up tourist attraction. While he was examining the street of porcelain, Landlord shuffled over to sniff the newcomer. The asshole kicked Landlord away, saying something about a “disgusting old mutt.” Well. No one was too upset when he mysteriously showed up dead the next day, Landlord by the corpse wagging his tail like he’d just seen a very good friend. Must have been just a freak tearror accident, after all.

 

Little Evie Shearwater went out wandering into the Fold one time and got hopelessly lost. Her mother was freaking out, needing to be restrained by the entire family to stop her from charging out into the dangers of the Fold after her. Everyone knew there was no chance of Evie not coming back tearror-changed and mutated… if she came back at all. So imagine everyone’s surprise and immense relief when Evie showed up at their doorstep in the middle of the night, scared and crying but ultimately completely okay. The only tearror that affected her was changing the color of her dress from blue to a beautiful deep red. When asked how she found her way back, all the little girl could explain was that some strange woman with one golden eye had shown up and guided her home, though it was sometimes hard to keep up because of how she disappeared and reappeared before Evie’s very eyes.

 

So Stationary Hill respects their ghost. She isn’t around often, but she’s theirs. And if there’s one thing to know about Stationary Hill, they take care of their own.

 

Tzila is haunted by the ghost most of all.

 

Sometimes when she does a reading, she’ll look up and see a single golden eye in the dark. She’ll be doing repairs on the monocycle, and the tool she needs will be closer to her than she remembered putting it. The disembodied sensation of a calloused hand adjusted her grip on a knife once. On her first venture deep into the desert wilderness, a faint whisper of a gruff voice suggested the left path— which was good, because the right path was covered in the rubble of a landslide the next day. The ghost’s influence is only ever there during Fold, often minor but consistent.

 

The most memorable occasion happened only a few months ago.

 

It had been her scariest monster-hunting excursion to date. She was alone, further out in the desert than anyone had ever gone before, and it was mid-Fold. She’d been hunting an anglereye but had lost the trail, fell down a small ravine, and twisted her ankle. This all culminated in Tzila crouched down with her back to a boulder while the anglereye found HER trail and started hunting her.

 

An anglereye is difficult to describe. Imagine a terrifying, 30 foot long hybrid between a snake and a centipede. No, that’s not scary enough, fuck it up a little more in your  mind. Little more. That’s better.

 

See, here’s the thing you missed though— its head. It looks as if you grabbed a piranha by the upper jaw and peeled it backwards, over its eyes and skull, until all that’s visible are rows of pointy teeth, fleshy skin, bits of broken bone, and a straight-down view of its throat. From the depths of its gullet, a tendril emerges, dangling a single fish-eye on the end of it.

 

This eye—how the anglereye sees, of course—has a flickering bioluminescence to it. A very specific one, in fact! The way it flashes riles the Fold into a particular paralysis tearror: anyone caught within this tearror would find their muscles tenderized to the point of immobility. The anglereye incites this tearror to catch prey. When the thing it's hunting can no longer scream or run away, it's much easier for the anglereye to use its eye-tendril to wrap around the prey, strangle it, and yank it down its throat to digest it whole.

 

So Tzila had one of those after her in the pitch-darkness of the Fold, as she was several days' journey away from even a semblance of civilization, all with a twisted ankle. Hopefully the stakes are made excessively apparent now. Tzila was toast.

 

She hadn’t quite accepted that she was toast yet though.

 

Tzila pressed her back to a boulder, trying to remain as still and silent as possible. She could faintly see the anglereye slithering and scuttling, lit up by the intermittent flashing of its eye, closer to her every time it lit up. Fifty paces away. Fourty. Thirty. She couldn’t let it get any closer— if the paralysis tearror hit her she was as good as dead.

 

Usually Tzila would leave some bait, wait until it was distracted, then run up along its back to knife it cleanly just behind its head, into the brain. That wasn’t exactly an option anymore considering the state of her ankle and the fact that the creature was now locked onto her. She’d have to take care of things a little more messily from a distance, and she seriously doubted her sharpened-colored-pencil-crossbow had the kind of firepower for something like this.

 

The eye of the creature abruptly locked onto Tzila. Its body shifted like it was about to pounce. Time was up.

 

So Tzila made a split-second decision, loaded her rifle with a lightbulb, and took the shot.

 

It was the wrong call.

 

As the lazerbeam seared its way through the darkness, the Fold shrieked and writhed around it. Tzila couldn’t tell if the shot even hit the anglereye as an angry tearror mutated before her very eyes, bursting into something huge.

 

And a massive foldwail apparated and sailed right towards Tzila.

 

Time seemed to slow. All Tzila could see was the giant open mouth engulfing her entire field of vision. There was no running, no escape— even if there was time, with her ankle she physically couldn’t. She didn’t even have enough time to think of an apology to her dad.

 

At the absolute last second before the massive jaws swallowed around Tzila, all of her struggles meaningless as she stared into its unfathomable maw, the tearror mutated again.

 

The foldwail transformed into a bird, which flew harmlessly away into the darkness.

 

Tzila didn’t have a moment to catch her breath— with the wail out of the way, she could see the anglereye was wounded, but not dead. Still, the shot of the rifle and the tearror gave her enough of a distraction to painfully hobble over and finish the anglereye off without any more trouble. Tzila was grateful in the moment it wasn’t all for nothing— her primary purpose was collecting the secretions of its eye, which had very coveted medicinal purposes, but anglereye leather was also decently valuable. It wasn’t until later that Tzila let herself grapple with how close death had truly come. If it weren’t for the Fold’s whim to make a bird at the exact right moment she would never have returned home. Never have seen her dad or friends again.

 

The Fold’s whim? Just the Fold’s whim? What about the Fold would have an interest in protecting Tzila?

 

Tzila has an idea, and it’s the whole reason she’s back in Stationary Hill this exact night. The night of the Haunting. The night when Stationary Hill’s ghost is most active.

 

Well, “active” is a misleading word for it. All the ghost really does is sit on a small platform at the very top of the interisletary cable tower, looking out across Stationary Hill and Midst. Distinctly not disappearing as she usually does, simply sitting there for nearly the whole night. Just… well, haunting them.

 

Not everyone in town knows about the Haunting— the top of the tower is a long way to look up. Even fewer have gone to investigate it— it’s an even longer way to climb up. But something within Tzila told her to direct her gaze skywards one night, and there the ghost was. There the ghost has been the same random night every year for the past decade.

 

And so we return to Tzila now, right this second, the night of the Haunting, her pencil poised over the scattering of the divination set.

 

She’s not doing a very complex reading— there’s no need to break out the incense and colored pencils for this one. Tzila just wants to take a moment to steel herself, to connect to the Fold before she comes face to face with a ghost.

 

She lets that sixth sense guide her hand, her pencil, and when she looks down every line she drew points to the bird skull wrapped in the piece of red fabric. I’m here, Tzila could swear she hears. But there’s something… off about it. Something a little more to this reading. She can’t quite put her finger on it.

 

Well, regardless, it seems like Tzila has someone to see.

 

She grabs her things and leaves the Cabaret, making sure to give Sherman a hug before she goes. He watches her leave with a distant, bittersweet expression.

 

Tzila makes it to the foot of the cable tower and looks up, up, up. Sure enough, she can just faintly make out the figure of a woman with a wide-brimmed hat sitting at the very top of it.

 

Tzila grabs a hold of the ladder and begins to pull herself up. This is no joke or small achievement, it’s a very high climb. You’d have to be strong or stupid to attempt it (or both, as per one example you may know of). Luckily, Tzila’s strong, and while she’s not stupid she is stubborn, which she’s found to be a better substitute anyway. She looks very cool hauling herself up rung by rung, the inky darkness of the Fold swirling around her.

 

After a few minutes, she makes it to the very top, pulls herself onto the platform, and meets a ghost in the eyes.

 

Well, one single golden eye.

 

“Hey kid,” Lark says. “How are you?”

 

Tzila groans dramatically and flings herself into a seat beside Lark, sending her feet dangling over the edge. You can see everything from up here: the whole of Stationary Hill sprawls below them, twinkling gently with Fold-safe lights, and Vermillion County stretches off into the distance (the ruins of a little house-hut-shack just barely visible from way up here). The Fold surrounds them from all sides—around, above, below— and the shifting of its currents is breathtaking from this height. Tzila rummages a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of her pocket, lighting one and handing it to Lark when she wordlessly holds out her hand in the universal “gimme” gesture.

 

Tzila goes to light a cigarette for herself and Lark gives her a look. “Don’t fucking smoke.” Lark says, giving her own cigarette a long drag. “It’ll kill you.”

 

Tzila snorts. “You can’t tell me what to do.” She lights the cigarette defiantly, swiping at the mild errant tearrors like you would a fly. “Also, you’re literally smoking right now.”

 

“I don’t have lungs.” Lark says in an unimpressed tone. Hmm. Tzila can’t argue with that one. Sighing, Tzila stamps out her cigarette and puts it back in her pocket. Not because Lark told her to, of course, she just doesn’t feel like it anymore.

 

Let’s take a look at Lark.

 

Her left half is entirely Fold. It’s not that she’s dissolved into the Fold, per se, more that the Fold has coalesced into forming a body. That telltale inky darkness swirls into the shape of her left arm, leg, side of her face: a shadow that has substance. While the Fold-created body parts are technically solid, they don't always remember they are; the Fold side of Lark pulses and creeps into and away from her right side and the surrounding night like waves on a shore.

 

The right side of Lark is human, at least in appearance. Though… it flickers somewhat, reminiscent of a faulty fluorescent lightbulb. And she looks, for lack of a better description, like a memory. Every time she flickers, it’s almost like something needs to re-imagine Lark anew. Sometimes she has long dreads, sometimes her hair is cropped short. Sometimes her nose is longer, or her wrinkles more pronounced, or her jawline more square. The differences tend to be subtle, but not always. Usually she hurts the brain to look at, but Tzila looks anyway.

 

As Tzila looks at Lark, she senses something on the spiderweb. A vibration. An uneasy feeling crawls up her spine, and she can’t tell if it’s just her or the Fold.

 

“So,” Lark says, abruptly breaking Tzila out of her reverie. “It’s been a year. Tell me what you’ve been up to.” This is a common refrain, their yearly Haunting routine: Lark asks about the year of Tzila’s life she’s missed, and Tzila is all too happy to share.

 

Tzila smiles. “Wanna hear about how I beat a swarm of jellyghouls with the colored pencil crossbow you told me wasn’t a real weapon?”

 

Lark quirks an eyebrow at her, and Tzila’s off, regaling her with the tales she had told everyone earlier that day. Lark sits quietly, listening, not taking her eyes off of Tzila as she animatedly describes the trajectory of the killing shot, the wild gestures of her hands telling half the story for her.

 

The night passes as Tzila catches Lark up on her adventures of the past year— the wild escapades she’s had, the monsters she’s fought, the sights she’s seen. Lark is a very attentive listener, grunting at the right points to encourage Tzila to keep going. Tzila tells Lark the story she told her dads and friends earlier, her words painting a picture of excitement, joy, and adventure, but as always something in Lark’s steadfast expression cracks something open in Tzila. Gradually, the stories somber, the exaggeration fades, and Tzila quietly admits the moments in which she felt afraid. Missed home. Faced her own mortality. There is never any judgment to be found from Lark, not about this.

 

When Tzila tells Lark the story about the anglereye and the mutating tearror that saved her, she could swear something gleamed in Lark’s eye.

 

After several hours, Tzila finishes everything she needed to tell Lark, a year’s worth of life wrapped into a night, and leans back with a sigh. Lark’s cigarette has long been a stub, and Tzila passes her another one— what’s the point of being a ghost without indulgences?

 

“Thanks, Tzila.” Lark says gruffly. It’s such an un-Lark thing to say that Tzila can’t help but jerk her head in Lark’s direction, her expression one of complete bewilderment.

 

“For the cigarette?” She asks in disbelief.

 

Lark grimaces slightly, shakes her head stiffly. “No. I mean, yes but… for coming up here these last ten years. And always taking the time to… keep me in the loop. Of your life. I… I like it.”

 

There’s still a bit of bafflement twisting Tzila’s eyebrows, but amusement has turned her lips upward in a smile. “Sure, Lark. It’s… it’s good to see you. I miss you.”

 

Lark grunts in that loving way of hers, and even basking as she is in the warm glow of Lark’s words, Tzila could swear the Fold tries to whisper her something, prepare her for something. What? She cocks her head, trying to hear further, but it seems… smothered. Well, if it’s important she’ll figure it out later, Tzila reasons, though she’s definitely left a trace unsettled.

 

“So,” Lark says, flicking the ash of her cigarette over the edge and smoothly changing the subject. “How’s Landlord?”

 

Tzila laughs, seizing gratefully upon the distraction. “Some little stray puppy decided he’s the coolest dog ever and has started following him around nonstop. Landlord seemed really annoyed at first, but he’s warming up to her now. He lets her scamper after him at any rate. We named her Tenant. Lark, she is so cute.”

 

Lark shakes her head in mock-reproval. “Once you let them follow you it’s all over. You’re doomed.” She shoots a teasing glance at Tzila, who scoffs and gives her a light shove. Her hand almost passes through Lark, but at the last second the Fold remembers bodies have substance and she makes contact. “Landlord did always have a thing for strays. Idiot dog.” Lark’s tone is undeniably fond, and Tzila can’t help but laugh. Lark even joins in, snorting briefly in a way that translates to being in hysterics for anyone else.

 

After the laughter has faded, Lark looks down at Stationary Hill for a moment. Tzila follows her gaze and watches the Fold-safe lights within the Black Candle Cabaret twinkle and glimmer, like a star in the dark.

 

“What’s your dad up to now?” Lark asks roughly.

 

A few years ago, Sherman used to come up and see Lark during the Haunting too. He’d sit beside Lark, the both of them gazing at Stationary Hill and occasionally at each other in the peace of the night. But he couldn’t hear Lark even when she tried to speak. Lark was partially the Fold, and only Tzila could hear the Fold. So they sat in companionable silence. Sometimes Sherman would talk, but Lark couldn’t answer. She didn’t always need to. Tzila never knew what Sherman said to her.

 

With Sherman aging, it became increasingly difficult for him to make the precarious trip up the ladder anymore, and he stopped coming after about five Hauntings. “Lark and I have made our peace with each other,” he told Tzila at the time. She remembered the tentative amity that had been directed towards him during her first reading, and didn’t argue.

 

“My dad’s good. He’s real good.” Tzila tells Lark. “The cabaret’s been doing well, which makes him happy, but I think he’s starting to consider retirement! That’s good for him, he works too hard. In a few days I’m going to take him on a trip to a really nice lake about a day away from here to see the lumepreys pass over Midst.”

 

Something flickers over Lark’s face. “He’ll like that.”

 

“I know.”

 

Lark turns her face away from Tzila, the Fold gathering tightly around her and obscuring her features. Smoke from her half-used cigarette curls into the air. Again, something slithers up the spiderweb to Tzila, something she can’t quite parse… but then Lark abruptly clears her throat, waves at the smoke with a lazy hand and looks at Tzila with a casual air.

 

“Heard from Phineas?” Lark asks.

 

Tzila hums an affirmative. “He sent a letter about a month back. He and Spahr are out on some relief trip to the Delta again. They say hello.”

 

“Okay.” Lark seems to think very hard for a moment before coming to some sort of conclusion. “You can tell Phineas I say hello back.” The way those words painfully drag out of Lark is as if she’d told Tzila to pass along her deepest darkest secret instead of a reciprocated greeting. Tzila correctly interprets it as the show of affection it is.

 

“I’ll tell them you send big hugs and kisses.” Tzila says.

 

Lark huffs a short laugh. “I’ll fucking haunt you for life.”

 

“You already do.”

 

The words were supposed to come out teasing, an easy addition to their back-and-forth banter. Instead they’re laced with a strain and emotion that Tzila didn’t intend to put there, and that she knows Lark picked up on. She watches as Lark pauses carefully and stamps out her cigarette. The vibrations Tzila has been feeling grow stronger and stronger, and suddenly Tzila understands what the Fold has been trying to fortify her for.

 

“Tzila—“ Lark begins.

 

“You have something you need to tell me.” Tzila cuts her off. Tzila knows she’s right, knows she didn’t misunderstand the Fold, but she won’t believe it until Lark says it aloud. Tzila feels a growing cold spreading throughout her.

 

Lark turns sharply to Tzila, her body language belying surprise at the unexpected foresight but her face carefully stoic. Whatever message Tzila must be projecting in her expression, Lark reads it like a book. She’s suddenly unable to meet Tzila’s eyes and runs her human hand over her face. “Fuck, Tzila. Don’t do that.”

 

“Lark,” Tzila says tremulously, warningly. Whatever doubts Tzila had in her mind as to what she heard from the Fold evaporated at Lark’s reaction. “Lark, I need to hear you say it.”

 

Lark is beginning to look like a caged tiger at the zoo, her golden eye quickly flicking back and forth like she’s planning an escape route, the Fold twisting itself around her at a quicker pace. Tzila’s starting to dread that Lark is just going to vanish in front of her. Lark’s always stayed the whole night for every previous Haunting, but, well, it’s not like she’s never abruptly left Tzila before, is it?

 

Suddenly all at once, the fight seems to drain out of Lark. She just looks… exhausted. Like a tired old woman. “Fine,” Lark says lowly. “Tzila, I’m not coming back anymore.”

 

It’s exactly what Tzila knew what she would say. Still, the confirmation of her fears cracks something within her chest, and Tzila… laughs. “Right,” she says. “Lark, I watched you literally disappear into the Fold after half your body was… eaten by darkness! Everyone thought you were dead, but here we are, talking right now! You come back, that’s what you do. What do you call hanging around Stationary Hill so often? The fuck do you mean you’re “not coming back anymore”?”

 

Lark makes a frustrated sound. “Exactly what I said. I’m… I’m just a memory, and the memory is fading.” She gestures at herself, at her human side, at the ghostly apparition she makes. “I won’t be around Stationary Hill anymore, I won’t be here next year. I’m not coming back.”

 

“Lark,” Tzila says again, helplessly, feeling her throat begin to seize. “You’re… dying?”

 

Lark gives her a long, loaded look. “I haven’t been alive in a long time, Tzila.”

 

Tzila recoils at the words.

 

Lark takes a deep breath, staring into the distance with an unreadable expression. “But… no. I’m not dying. I’m just… becoming more.” Tzila knows her face must be awash with confusion and heartbreak, but luckily Lark keeps explaining. “When I was alive, I was mostly just Lark. When I got my scar, I became Lark-and-the-Fold. The exact amount of Lark versus Fold I’ve been has changed over the last decade, but now…” Lark pauses for a very long time. Her whole body hangs with the weight of exhaustion. She looks so old. “I’m ready to be… just the Fold.”

 

Tzila just gapes at her, unable to believe what she’s hearing. “So you’re dying?” She pointedly asks again, but it’s not a question this time. It’s an accusation.

 

Lark exhales heavily, an aggravated sound. “No, Tzila, are you not—“ She cuts herself off. Collects herself. Clenches her fist a few times. “I’m not dying,” she repeats softly. “I’m just… changing.”

 

“You called yourself a memory,” Tzila says hollowly. “You said you’re fading. Lark, what are you changing into?”

 

Lark shrugs. “I don’t know. But I’m ready to find out.” She rubs her Fold arm with her human one. “The Fold is so… vast, Tzila. It thinks so many thoughts all the time. I don’t always understand them but it’s… it’s beautiful. Soothing. I’ve had to fight this last decade to keep the memory of my thoughts, of myself from just… washing away into it all. I’d like to stop fighting. I’d like to stop running. The Fold is… it’s trying to embrace me, I think. Has been for decades. I’d like to let it.”

 

Tzila feels an ache in her throat, a warning of tears to come. Her denial is gone, replaced by a confused desperation. “Why now? Why after all this time? Why fight to be this… this ghost for the last ten years? What has it all been for?”

 

Maybe it’s because it’s Lark’s last night that she’s able to say these things, but there’s an uncharacteristic candidness in her reply, a vulnerability that was so rarely expressed in her life. “I wanted to make sure the Trust wasn’t coming back. I wanted to see the transformations of Stationary Hill and Midst for myself. There is a peace in watching the current keep flowing. Of Midst keep spinning. And I…still had connections here. I felt it when you first used that divination set, and I realized it might be nice to hang around for a while to see what you’d do with it. Landlord promised me he’d look after you. Had to make sure he was doing his job, didn’t I?”

 

Tears begin to streak down Tzila’s cheeks, unable to stop them. “I don’t understand, Lark.” She says helplessly. “I don’t understand, I don’t understand. You never wanted me around, you always saw me as a burden. But then… you give me your divination bag that you once told me was your mom’s and you… you’re here, every year. How… why…?”

 

Tzila finds herself struggling with her words. She has so many things she wants to ask, so many answers she wants to wring out of Lark, but she can hardly even make heads or tails of what she, Tzila, is feeling right now. And now, with this new time constraint, every last word starting to sound like a goodbye…? Everything is so confusing. Lark, for her part, stays quiet, letting Tzila work through whatever she needs to.

 

Tzila remembers what she felt the first time she correctly used the divination set, when she touched the expanse of the Fold: that strange, strong love directed towards her. She also remembers the coldness of Lark’s eyes when she told Tzila they were not friends, the fear that thrummed through Tzila’s whole being when Lark told her she killed Fuze. There’s no easy answer to be found with Lark, but apparently it’s Lark’s last night here and Tzila has always been a curious girl.

 

“Why’d you give me this?” Tzila finally whispers. She brushes the divination pouch where it’s hanging on her belt. “Why do you…?”

 

Care, is what she wants to say, but the word won’t come out. Lark seems to hear it anyway. She always could hear the things no else seemed able to.

 

Lark takes a long, slow breath, her eyes falling shut. The Fold pulses around her. Tzila doesn’t expect Lark to answer, but something sinks to the pit of her stomach anyways.

 

It’s only when Tzila has pulled her eyes off of Lark to stare at the expanse of Stationary Hill, her sight blurred by tears, that Lark speaks.

 

“There’s a reason I’m able to be here on this day every year. It’s when I feel most… attached to Midst.”

 

It’s not the question Tzila asked, but she’s suddenly intrigued by the answer. She’d never put much thought into why the Haunting always occurs on this date for the past decade. It’s not the anniversary of when Lark vanished into the Fold, at any rate.

 

There’s a very long silence. It takes everything Tzila has not to push.

 

“Today marks the sixtieth year since my mom died.” Lark finally says in a very low tone.

 

Everything seems to freeze around Tzila.

 

“Died?” She repeats in a whisper.

 

Lark takes a deep breath, preparing to tell a story that otherwise Phineas Thatch would have taken to his grave. “Murdered.”

 

It feels like the moon fell again.

 

The terrible sound a moon makes when it falls, the simultaneous shattering of windows, the shock wave of energy— all an apt metaphor to describe what the inside of Tzila’s head feels like in the wake of Lark’s confession. She’s white-knuckling the edge of the platform and doesn’t even realize it, completely paralyzed.

 

“Who,” Tzila finally pushes out through numb lips. “Who killed her?” She has a sick feeling inside of her, a strong hunch, and knows the answer before Lark speaks.

 

“Maximilian Loxlee.”

 

“And you—“

 

“I murdered Maximilian Loxlee.”

 

“Lark,” Tzila says, her mind whispering Clara Mire. “Is that why you—“

 

“Yes.”

 

Tzila finally turns to look at Lark. The Fold is writhing around Lark as she stares somewhere into the middle distance. The memory of a vein visibly pulses in her throat.

 

Tzila remembers what she felt like a decade ago when she was told Sherman died— the waves of anguish, the hopelessness, the loneliness, the rage. She sees it all reflected in Lark’s posture.

 

Tzila also remembers when she first correctly used the divination set and connected with the Fold, when she felt Lark’s emotions. She’d always been puzzled by that grief-love concoction humming at the core of Lark’s person— it felt so familiar to Tzila, but not in any way she could put her finger on. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle begin to click together.

 

“What was your mom like?” Tzila can’t help but ask, unable to imagine Lark as a child, what sort of mother could have possibly raised a person like her. Lark is startled by the question, broken out of some sort of reverie. No one has ever asked her this before.

 

Lark leans back, clearly lost in thought. As omnipresent as her mother is to her being,  she’s never had to… describe her before. She needs to think back over sixty years, to when she was a different person.

 

“She was… stern.” Lark settles on. “Quiet, very serious, but very kind. She always… she always looked out for me. We were in the Testing department of a Loxlee Lights factory, and that was a pretty dangerous job. Sometimes she would do twice the work to make sure I wouldn’t be given the riskier tasks. Always said I got into too much trouble for my own good without anything helping me along into it.

 

“She’d do a reading for me every night before bed. My mom… she was always so much better at it than I was. Usually it was just stuff about eating more vegetables or listening to my mother, but every now and then she’d get a weird look in her eyes and make me promise I wouldn’t talk to someone the next day or go near a certain vat of Fold solute. She always ended up being right. She’d… she’d tell me someday we’d get out of the Trust, move down to some Fold islet together, where it would be quiet and peaceful. I asked her if she foresaw that. She never really answered.”

 

Tzila can’t imagine this woman, can’t picture Lark as a child, but the description of Lark’s mother reminds Tzila of her own different caretakers: Sherman, Saskia, Lark herself.

 

“I think I get why you killed Mr. Loxlee.” Tzila says lowly. Lark turns to face her for the first time since her mother was mentioned, an emotion in her eyes Tzila has never seen from her before. “I think… I think he deserved to die. Lark, you were just a kid.”

 

Lark shrugs. “You were too.” Something almost nostalgic flits across her face. “Twelve and a half, to be exact. You were very particular about that.”

 

“But I had you.” Tzila says desperately. “When we thought my dad was dead, you looked after me. But you had no one.”

 

Lark scoffs. “You may as well have had no one, Tzila. I sure as hell have never been the person you’ve needed. You found your dad all on your own, made Phineas and I look like idiots.”

 

Tzila flounders for words, feeling a bubbling emotion in her chest she just can’t make Lark understand. “You just told me how your mom was a stern lady who kept you out of trouble— Lark, who do you think you are?”

 

In a flash Lark’s eyes are locked dead on Tzila, her face twisted into a snarl. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” She growls in the same threatening tone she once used ten years ago, digging her monocycle out of rubble while Tzila sobbed in fear and anger. “You don’t know who I am and you don't know who my mom was. Stop trying to make me something I’m not.”

 

Tzila throws her hands up incredulously. “For god’s sake Lark, I know who you fucking are! I’m not asking you to braid my hair and bake me a birthday cake, I’m trying to say thank you for saving my life and for caring about me!” 

 

The words ring in the air for several long moments. Tzila’s breathing hard, her chest rising and falling like she’s just run a marathon, and Lark is stock still— a prey animal caught in the headlights.

 

“You gave me your mom’s divination bag.” Tzila finally says in an uncharastically small voice. “I don’t know what you want me to read from that, Lark. I don’t know what to do with this. You care about me and my dad, I know you do, but…” She trails off.

 

Lark sighs wearily, sending ripples out into the Fold ahead. “I don’t know how to care about people, Tzila. I don’t know how to do this right.”

 

“I don’t need you to do it right, Lark.” Tzila says, her voice cracking open. Her eyes overflow with tears, and she feels the passing of every second like sand through a sieve. Unrise will be here soon. She knows it’s selfish, but… “I just don’t want you to leave. For once, Lark, don’t leave.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Lark, please don’t leave me.”

 

“Tzila,” Lark says gruffly. She reaches out, hesitates, but then holds Tzila’s shoulder, her touch ephemeral and inhuman. “Someone always has to leave first. That’s the way life works. And I would have done anything during my life to ensure I would be the one to leave before you.”

 

“I only ever wanted you to stay!” Tzila cries. “Every time, I never wanted you to leave me, I wanted you to take me with you.”

 

She thinks she could do it— she really does. The Fold is alive around them tonight, warm and welcoming. If Lark were to dissolve into it, Tzila truly believes she could jump on after— sheer stubbornness, perhaps, but potentially not totally unfounded. The Fold wraps around her as well, and Tzila has a lot of practice at sneaking into places she shouldn’t be.

 

Lark sighs, her hold on Tzila’s shoulder loosening against her volition, her fingers feeling less there by the second. “You’re right.” Lark admits. “I didn’t—I don’t always do right by you. But Tzila, where I’m going you can’t follow. You have to live.” Her gaze pierces right through Tzila. “You deserve to live free of anyone that would tell you who to be— the Trust, Weepe, even me.”

 

Logically, Tzila knows Lark’s right, she really does. As much as she loves the Fold, loves Lark, her life sprawls out ahead of her— filled with Sherman and Hieronymous and Bets and Walter and Landlord and a million more people she might love and a billion more adventures she might go on. She’s still figuring out who she is, and she thinks she just might like the answer. Her place, for now at least, is here on Midst.

 

Tzila’s not really thinking with logic right now though. She can’t stop sobbing.

 

“You can’t scare me off this time, Lark.” Tzila lashes out, the sobbing grief turning into a more comfortable anger. “I’m not fucking listening to the “horrible person” shit this time around. You have never told me who to be, you have saved me— but you’ve sure as hell taken my choices away before and left. And when you do that, I make my own damn choices anyway and follow, even if I have to stow away to do it.”

 

Lark doesn’t bat an eye at this outburst, just cooly accepts it. “I underestimated you before. I was… wrong.” She looks Tzila up and down. “But you’re not making a choice like this today, and you’re sure as hell not “stowing away.” You’re capable, but you’re still so young. Take it… take it as a rule from your babysitter.”

 

Tzila begins to sputter, half-formed protests bursting against her lips, but Lark holds up her left hand to silence her— the one made entirely of Fold, its outline barely distinguishable from the identical inky darkness surrounding it.

 

“Just because you can’t make the choice today though doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have it at all. I will give you the choice.” Lark says seriously, her eyes boring into Tzila’s. “You can think about it and be able to make it someday, after you’ve lived a very, very long time, okay?” Lark brings Tzila’s hand into her left one, the darkness of the Fold eclipsing Tzila’s palm. “Do you want it?”

 

Tzila can do nothing but nod desperately. Lark looks at her for a long, careful moment, and then sends a pulse of Fold from her hand straight into Tzila’s.

 

Something warm and dark and alive begins to expand across Tzila’s palm, a black dendritic scar sketching its way across her skin like a drop of ink spreading in water. Lark lets it grow to encompass about half of her palm before she lightly touches a fingertip to it. The rapidly extending tendrils slow, then stop, an opalescent sheen growing over them as if frosting over. When the whole thing is complete, a fractal, almost snowflake-like marking is left on the palm of Tzila’s hand, the center of it a deep void of black, and its branching edges a pure opalescent.

 

Tzila has never seen a Fold scar like it before. No one has.

 

“When Mr. Loxlee killed my mom,” Lark says quietly as the marking etches across Tzila’s palm. “He dissolved her body in a vat of Fold solute. But I think, just before she died, the Fold took her in. I feel her out there. And the Fold has taken me in too, now. All that’s left is for me to accept it, to stop making myself separate from it all. I want to be with my mom again, whatever we both are now.

 

“I don’t know where you’re going or what you want, Tzila. But you have a choice. Come into the Fold or stay seperate— let the darkness grow or make it all inert. But you have time— this marking won’t grow until you decide what to do with it. Whatever you want to do, Tzila.” Lark smirks. “No one could ever tell you what to do— even the Fold is no different.”

 

Lark taps the marking with her human hand, and Tzila feels the spiderweb twang. Her whole hand feels abuzz, the darkness swirling around it. The Fold is so alive tonight— she hears its siren song with an unprecedented clarity. It’s so beautiful, so comforting, but… she also doesn’t think she’s ready to give up the light. Tzila looks up at Lark, eyes shining, unable to find words. Lark, for once, has more to say than she does.

 

“I know I’m changing, Tzila. I know I won’t be here anymore. But this time I’m not leaving you. When the Fold washes over you, when you hear the message of your divination, when a tearror has you in its embrace— I am there. The Fold loves you, Tzila. We’re not abandoning you.”

 

“It’s not the same.” Tzila whispers. “It’s not the same as having you here like this. It’s not the same as hearing your voice, talking to you, seeing you here.”

 

Lark doesn’t deny it— how could she? Who would know this better than her? “No. No it’s not, Tzila. It will never be the same again. But what comes next must come, and it will be different, and you will be strong enough to face it like you always have.”

 

Tzila wetly laughs, reminded of that reading in Sequester all those years ago. “Do you foresee that?”

 

“No.” Lark’s eyes are softer than they ever were in life. “I just know it.”

 

Tzila can’t help but laugh and laugh again and again, wiping her tears away with her newly marked palm, feeling an ache and a lightness and a love in her chest all at once. In the distance, an obsidian wall approaches at the pace of a fast walk— Unrise is quickly approaching.

 

And Tzila knows bittersweetly in her heart that she will be here to greet that Unrise— she will greet thousands of more Unrises in the years to come. She will walk home to see her dad, she will watch the currents pass over Midst, and she will live. She will live, and Lark will pass on to become something neither of them can fathom, but both of them will be loved by that same vast dark ocean of potentiality. Maybe Tzila will follow Lark into it one day. Maybe she won’t. But there are dozens of years between here and there, and in the meantime that stubborn streak in Tzila wants to make them hers. Someday her face will be as wrinkled and creased as Lark’s— but Tzila will have laugh lines.

 

“You once told me to have a regular, boring life.” Tzila says to Lark. “I don’t think I can do that. I think I’m going to have an incredible, exciting life full of adventures, and you can’t stop me.”

 

Lark’s eyes crinkle. “I can live with that.” She casts one last long look at the beautiful panoramic expanse of Midst around them, her eyes catching especially upon Vermillion County and the Black Candle Cabaret. The obsidian wall is almost upon them, but neither are afraid. Lark stands up, Tzila fast behind her, and they regard each other.

 

“You think you needed me, but you didn’t.” Lark says softly. Tzila opens her mouth to argue, but Lark quiets her with a raised hand. “You had it backwards. I needed you, Tzila. I’m not running anymore.”

 

Tzila smiles warmly, her eyes bright. “Stationary Hill isn’t going to know what to do without its ghost.”

 

And Lark does something Tzila has only seen her do once before: she smiles back. “I hear they have a witch looking out for them these days.” Her golden eye shines in the darkness, and she says it like a benediction: “You’ll be okay.”

 

With her arm of Fold, Lark reaches out and squeezes Tzila’s Fold-marked hand. The two of them smile at each other, the old passing on to the new.

 

“Say hi to your mom for me.” Tzila says. Lark nods, and then everything is bright.

 

The Unlight is achingly brilliant when it washes over, the Fold rapidly racing away. Tzila can’t help but squint her eyes, blinking a few times to defend against the onslaught of light.

 

When she opens her eyes, the ghost is gone. In her place is a small brown feather, gently drifting in the morning breeze. The witch grabs it, her palm a brilliant mixture of black and opal, gently places it into the divination pouch on her belt, and begins the climb back down to Stationary Hill.