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You’d expect a storage shack to contain a lot of old junk, and this one certainly does—you can make out gardening tools, a couple of old bookcases, a stepladder, a stack of newspapers or magazines, and some figurines that probably have some kind of spiritual significance, and there’s plenty else besides—but one thing it doesn’t have is a bed. Not that you really thought there might be an actual bed, frame and mattress and all, given the dimensions of the place, and who it belongs to, but there isn’t even a folded up futon. You’ll have to make do on the floor. Well, you probably weren’t going to get much sleep anyway. It’s at least mercifully somewhat warmer in here than outside, and will provide shelter in the event of any further stormy weather.
Caves have a comparatively even temperature year-round, which helps. This isn’t really a shack in the conventional sense. The nuns have taken a fissure in the rock, leveled out the ground and put down some matting, and boarded across the entrance, incorporating a door to allow access. There is of course no electric light, but there isn’t even a lantern either. During the day, the light the door lets in is probably enough for its intended use. It would be tricky to hang a lantern anyway. The rock walls on either side approach each other above the storage space, with a gap of a few inches between them that goes up goodness only knows how high.
You sit down with your back against an old coffee table propped on its side against the wall near the entrance, and take your mask off. You hang it on one of the table’s legs, making a mental note of which side of you it’s on. You clasp your arms round your legs, rest your head on your knees, wince as that brings them in contact with your wound, turn your head to find a better position, and close your eyes.
Now that you’ve finally finished running around clearing everything up, a deep wave of exhaustion rolls over you, but the adrenaline is still coursing through your system. There’s nothing more you can do right now, other than try to get some rest before the bundle of challenges tomorrow will bring, but your mind won’t stay away from everything that’s just happened. The events of the evening keep replaying like a sick joke without a punchline, or a slow motion car crash you’re powerless to stop. Stabbing Dahlia Hawthorne as she was about to kill Maya; the searing pain of the slash to your face, your mask sailing off into the darkness; groping around for it, blind, in the freezing cold snow, wet hands first hurting and then turning numb with the cold and pant legs and sleeves getting soaked through, and finding it after what seemed like an age; hauling Misty’s body to the bridge, tying it to the severed cable and swinging it across the gorge to a waiting Iris; carrying Maya into the Training Hall; shoveling all that potentially blood-stained snow, your back aching by this point; burning to ashes in the incinerator the handkerchief you used to mop up the blood from your wound.
After a while, you develop a need to urinate. You ignore it for a time, but it eventually becomes pressing. Resigning yourself to the inevitability of a trip into the freezing outdoors, you open your eyes (not that that does anything; force of habit) and make to stand up.
You stumble painfully into something and fall back down again. That’s odd, you think as you rub your leg to soothe the feeling—you don’t remember there being anything quite so close in front of you. You locate your mask and put it on.
There’s a bed.
You’d been sure there wasn’t a bed in here. It seems difficult to believe you could have missed it. You’d have reckoned even a single bed would take up the entire usable length and a good three quarters of the width of the shack, leaving little room for everything else in here, never mind that you couldn’t have taken a step inside without tripping over it. But you’re aware that your vision is not exactly perfect these days. (Damn Dahlia Hawthorne!) And although the storm has passed and moonlight is supplementing the torchlight shining from the left, through the window set into the door, you can’t really describe the place as well illuminated. Clearly the space must be bigger than you thought, and somehow the bed escaped your notice, and… now you’re seeing it from an angle where the light’s more favorable, or something.
Anyway, you can relocate there once you’ve concluded your business outside. It’s made up with sheets and a dark-colored (black?) comforter and pillows, so even if you’re not going to get any shuteye it will be warmer than huddling on the floor, not to mention more comfortable.
You reluctantly open the door, bracing yourself against the cold. You really don’t want to go out into this weather, never mind expose yourself, but the alternative is wetting your pants.
The garden is serene in the chilly moonlight and the warm flickering light of the torches, with an austere beauty, beneath its blanket of pure white snow. It’s hard to believe this was the scene of such drama and tragedy just a few short hours ago. You cast your eyes again over the area beneath the lantern. Nothing looks amiss; but you’re all too conscious that there could be bloodstains advertising what happened here like a giant neon sign and you’d have no idea.
Fortunately, you don’t have to go far to find a spot where there’s no snow to leave a telltale stain in—underneath a bush in a raised bed—and unzip. You manage to keep your dick almost entirely contained in the warmth of your hand as you direct the stream. Ahh, that feels better.
You’ve been rationing your coffee intake, since you only brought one thermos. You’re definitely feeling the lack of that caffeinated goodness, but on the upside you hopefully won’t need to repeat this trip before morning.
You’re very much looking forward to that cozy bed as you make your way back to the shack. You still can’t quite believe it was there, and are starting to wonder if you could have imagined it; but the slight pain you can still feel where you barked your shin suggests otherwise.
Indeed, when you open the door, grateful to be back in the relative warmth of the shack, there it is. You take your shoes off and go to get in.
There’s someone on it. You almost jump out of your skin.
It’s Misty, you realize. Misty! You’re flooded with blessed relief. Misty, reclining on the covers, on her side with her head propped up on one arm, and looking right at you. (You surely couldn’t have missed that, when you spotted the bed? Did she come in while you were outside? How is she even on this side of the gorge?) You’re about to examine her wound to see what you can do for her, even though she looks completely undamaged and not like she’s in pain. Then you remember: death is no impediment to turning up like this. Actually, being dead is the whole reason she’s able to turn up like this.
The coldness rolls back through you. Who’s channeling her, you wonder? The clothes and hairstyle don’t give any clue—she’s wearing a little black dress, and her hair is in its usual beehive. But as far as you’re aware, Pearl Fey doesn’t know that Misty’s dead. Maya, then, probably.
“How are you doing?” she asks, sympathy and concern clear on her face.
“Ha! I should be asking you that, Mama Cat,” you reply, with an attempt at a smile. You wait, expectantly, for her to say something—perhaps how the afterlife’s treating her. But she’s silent, still looking at you, faintly amused at your response.
Knowing she’s dead doesn’t change the fact that she’s a fine-looking woman; and the dress makes the most of her assets. You could find comfort in each other’s arms, a way to forget the horror of the past few hours until you’re ready to face it again in the morning. But even if you could be sure you wouldn’t be fucking a nine-year-old girl, you never sleep with channeled spirits. That’s one of your rules. It was tempting to ask Misty to channel Mia for you; after all, she wouldn’t have had to know exactly what the two of you got up to together while she was out of it. But some things belong on only one side of the grave. You guess you’ll be back on the floor again after all.
“I’m sorry things worked out this way,” you tell her, as you sit back down. “I didn’t think I could hate that demon any more than I already did. Putting me in the position of having to kill you… I almost wish I could rewind time and undo it. But I know your number one priority was protecting Maya. You said you’d be willing to die for her if it became necessary. That’s why we had Plan B.”
She doesn’t say anything. The look on her face is uncertain, inquiring.
“Maya’s okay,” you reassure her. “I took her to the Training Hall. She’s unharmed. Dahlia was put out of action before she could land anything serious on her. She’ll probably be in a bit of shock when she comes round, but she’s a resilient girl. She’s been through worse before.”
Maya has presumably already come round and made her way to the shack, where she’s now lying on the bed in front of you providing the body that her mother is using, but Misty doesn’t need to know that.
She’s still looking at you without saying anything. You’re beginning to find it rather unsettling. Usually, when you find yourself on the back foot, you talk your way back into a dominant position. But a good line in rhetoric relies on a fully-functioning brain, and you’re all out of gas. Instead you fall silent yourself, and look away, towards the far end of the shack.
There’s no proper wall there. Just some shelves spanning the width of the fissure a couple of yards in from the entrance, with the gap in the rock becoming too narrow and low-ceilinged behind that point to be of any use. This is where that collection of statuettes is, as well as what look like rolled up hanging scrolls, some vases, and some small chests. The stepladder is propped against the shelves, and the shape next to it could well be a folding screen.
You feel your eyes closing. For all that Misty’s silence after her initial words is disconcerting, and despite acting as a constant reminder of how horribly wrong things just went, her presence is soothing, calming. You’re relaxed enough that you’ve just nodded off, you realize as you awake with a start. You’re about to take your mask off and go to sleep again, grateful that you’ve managed it after all, when you register what you’re seeing.
Another bed.
There definitely wasn’t room for a bed in front of those shelves—the shack is only four or five feet wide at its broadest point, you couldn’t have slumped down to lie fully extended when you first sat down against this coffee table without hitting the wall on the other side, between a bookcase and a stack of magazines, and that’s before you start accounting for the space now taken up by the first bed—and yet there it is.
You could swear this one’s empty, but somehow as you stare at it in shock, without anything apparently changing it becomes clear it too has an occupant.
Dahlia is lying on top of the black covers, like an effigy. (She looks innocuous and pure, like Iris. But it’s not Iris. Iris is on the other side of the river.)
You jump to your feet immediately, ready to defend yourself, and to prevent her getting past you to the shack door and out into the night to wreak havoc. You curse yourself for not managing to hold onto a weapon. Why didn’t you recover that knife from wherever it landed in the garden? But she just lies there, looking up at you with those big brown eyes fringed with long dark lashes, with apparently no inclination to make a move.
She’s wearing a little black dress too, ostensibly more modest than Misty’s, but still designed to show off her figure to full advantage. Her bright red hair, like Misty’s, is in its usual style; but it can only be Pearl channeling her. After all, Maya is channeling Misty, and in any case it makes sense that she’d try again to carry out her mother’s instructions.
You can’t explain how she got into the shack and onto the bed though. (Unless she’s been hiding here all along.)
Dahlia smiles at you with her soft, coral-pink lips, that faux-innocent smile of hers. “I had no idea I meant so much to you… Mr. Armando,” she says. “Our time together was so brief. But you couldn’t hold yourself back, could you? You couldn’t stop yourself from thrusting into me. You wanted to impale me so badly. What, was it that little bit of spice I added to your coffee? Have you been holding onto that all this time? That’s so sweet. I have to confess it didn’t make the same impact on me. Sorry. I’m afraid I forgot all about you as soon as you were out of my way.”
A wave of pure rage washes over you. You struggle to control yourself. Even if you still had anything to plunge into her, even if there was something lying around in here that would serve your purpose, with the image of Misty’s lifeless body swimming again before your eyes you force yourself to remember you would be killing a nine-year-old girl. A nine-year-old girl who’s messing with dark forces and following the instructions of a convicted murderess, but still, you can just about acknowledge, a nine-year-old girl who doesn’t deserve to die.
You force yourself to take several calming breaths, and bite down the first response that comes to you, which is “Go back to Hell, you she-devil”.
“Sorry to disappoint you, petal,” you say instead, once you can trust the words to come out in a casual tone, “but you’re just a footnote in my story. Who remembers years later whether it was a bird strike or a snowstorm that delayed their plane long enough that they weren’t around to say goodbye to a dying loved one?” You’re aware that the analogy doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but you’re still running on empty.
Like Misty before her (who is still looking at you, once again faintly amused, you see, as you take a quick glance to the side), Dahlia doesn’t say anything further in reply. She just looks straight back at you, the angelic expression now replaced by one of disdain, with a touch of anger.
“When I came out of that coma and heard what had happened to Mia,” you continue, “I was consumed with grief. I didn’t have any attention to spare for silly little girls with no finesse. Besides, you’d already been convicted of your crimes and were slated to pay the ultimate price. Why give any thought to the spent coffee grounds when they’re on the way to the trash?”
She’s definitely angry now; but she’s still resting in that same peaceful pose.
“I hope you enjoyed your trip to Hell, first class,” you pursue. “I’d have asked you to send me a postcard, but the scenery isn’t exactly much to look at down there.”
A small chuckle comes from Misty to your left, and you nearly jump out of your skin again as it’s echoed by one from the right. One that sounds so achingly familiar. You jerk your head around, and there, sitting on a bed that's against the other wall, where you had been sitting with your back to the coffee table just a couple of minutes ago, on the edge with her legs crossed, the toe of one black stiletto heel pointed towards you, in a little black dress that offers her cleavage up to display and finishes not much below her crotch, is Mia.
You turn round slightly, so that you can look at her while still keeping Dahlia well in sight. Who the fuck is channeling her? You’re sure Sister Bikini was back on the other side of the bridge before it was hit by the lightning strike. So was Iris; and she can’t channel anyway. Could some unknown medium have somehow been hiding here?
No, it doesn’t make any sense. None of it makes any sense. The mysteriously appearing beds that somehow fit into this tiny space, the women who are suddenly there to fill them, the way they remain eerily wordless after speaking their piece… You have no fucking idea what’s going on here, but it’s not spirit channeling. Which means… if you could find something sharp to shove into Dahlia, something long and pointed, you wouldn’t be harming anyone living. The temptation is overwhelming. You couldn’t really feel the full satisfaction of doing it earlier, not with the slashing pain across your face that immediately followed and then the icy realization flooding through you when you’d recovered your mask and saw Misty lying there dead. You cast your eyes around, looking…
Your train of thought is interrupted by Mia, still looking at you, her expression now one of concern.
“Diego…” she says, gently. “What are your next steps? Will you confess? Or will you let someone else take the fall?”
It takes you a moment to wrench your thoughts away from your search for a stabbing implement and wrap your head around her question.
“Confess? There’s no need for that, Kitten. That lightning strike was a bit of luck. Maya’s got a cast-iron alibi.”
You’re not surprised, after Misty and Dahlia, that Mia doesn’t say anything in response.
“There are plenty of unsolved cases,” you continue. “This will just be another one to add to the pile.”
Dahlia is sneering now, in apparent disbelief that things will go so smoothly for you.
“Depending on how things pan out,” you add, “Iris might ‘confess’ to moving the body after seeing Maya kill Misty. We’ve already discussed that. It might be the best way to bring out the evidence against that theory of what happened.”
Mia looks dissatisfied, almost reproachful.
“The three of us agreed this from the beginning,” you say. “I need to be around to keep an eye on Maya. Just because Morgan’s dead, doesn’t mean she can’t try something further. You know that. Iris will take the blame for messing with the body and crime scene if need be. She understood that going in. She’ll carry out her duty to protect the main family. Besides, she feels this will go some way towards her absolution.”
Dahlia’s sneer intensifies. Mia’s expression, in contrast, is a complex mix of disappointment and pity.
You look right round the other way, hoping for support from Misty. Even if she won’t speak, you might get her to nod.
She isn’t there any more. The bed is gone as well.
When you look back at Dahlia a moment later, she too has disappeared, along with the bed she was in.
You quickly turn back to Mia, worried she will have vanished like the others, but to your relief she’s still there.
“Stay with me,” you entreat her. “Please,” you add.
She turns back the cover, and scoots along to the foot, gesturing for you to get in. The bed is incredibly soft, and so warm. You drift off almost instantly, comforted by Mia’s presence, a weight you can feel pressing down next to your feet.
When you wake, gray daylight streaming down through the small window, you’re lying alone on the cold, hard matting.