Chapter Text
Relena sat behind the wheel of her car in the train station’s mostly empty parking lot. Rain pelted the windshield and roof with what felt like urgent persistence. A final warning, perhaps? The sound of it mirrored the hammering in her chest. Closing her eyes, she dropped a hand to her chest and breathed deep, willing her pulse to slow.
A year. A year of grief, of questions unanswered, of midnight tears, and of debts gone unpaid.
But it had only been six months to get here. Six months of preparation, arrangements, and weathering the withering looks from friends and family alike. Six months of missed calls, of withdrawal, of resolve that grew daily.
It had been a year since her father’s death, six months since first contact, and 48 hours since one Duo Maxwell confirmed the date and time of their first in-person meeting.
If all went well, they’d see no other souls save for each other for who knew how long. Months easily. A year maybe.
If all went badly, she’d never see Duo Maxwell again, would be out no small sum, and would be no closer to her goal. A lot rode on first impressions, Relena knew; but this was one she couldn’t afford to miss.
With a final deep breath, Relena opened her eyes to gaze through the rain at the arrivals platform. A train was departing, and a solitary figure dressed in black stood hunched under an awning. Ink in the water. Grabbing her umbrella, she stepped out of the car and into the torrent.
The coffee shop near the station catered to the commuter crowd. It offered enough of a menu to keep its patrons returning, but at this time of day was also empty enough to keep their conversation private. Relena had offered to drive them up to the estate she had rented straight away but Duo declined. It was better to have this conversation here and now, before either of them were in too deep. Her thoughts turned to the house she had locked in for a year—cash up-front for no questions asked—but bit back the remark. As he approached the counter, Relena moved to a far corner of the shop to wait.
He returned with two cups in-hand and slid into the chair opposite her. He set one of them down before her and pocketed what looked like a tea packet. Before Relena could ask after it, he launched into questions, “You’ve been abstaining, right? No sex, drugs, alcohol, caffeine… And fasting between dawn and dusk?”
“Yes,” Relena said, then pointed to the cup he had put in front of her. “What’s this?”
“Hot water, for both of us,” Duo answered, taking a drink. “I’ve been abstaining too, just in case this isn’t a fool’s errand.”
Relena clenched her teeth at the comment, but reached out to take the cup in her hands all the same. “Thank you,” she said, although even she could hear the clipped tone.
Duo either didn’t notice or ignored it. “And you found a place that’ll work?”
“Lease good for a year. Big estate. Rooms facing the directions you said they needed to—”
“And you’re sure you want to do this?” he cut in. He met her eyes and Relena was startled to find them so very blue, almost midnight violet. Duo continued, “It is not exactly a walk in the park. There’s going to be hunger, fatigue, pain. You’re going to hate me for most of it. Probably hate yourself and the world for at least some of it for putting you through this. It’s an absolute bitch of a ritual. But—if you keep going, and eventually get through it—there’ll be euphoria too.”
“And I’ll get what I want.”
“If it works, you’ll get what you want.”
Relena keyed onto his caveat, one that her friend hadn’t shared when they had referred her to him. “What do you mean by ‘if?’”
“I mean ‘if.’ Exactly as I said.” He took another swallow of hot water before continuing. “I’ve guided people through this four times prior. Twice it worked, twice it didn’t. Same ritual for all of it, no changes, so best I can figure is that you—” he said, jabbing his finger at Relena, “—are the key to its success. If you aren’t worth their time, or don’t know what you want, or aren’t fully committed—and I mean fully committed—it won’t work. I can’t control that. That is above me. I can tell you what to do or not do. I can guide, I can teach, I can facilitate. But the rest is up to you.”
Convenient. Relena thought again about the house in the country, the train ticket to get him here, the payment up front to get him to even agree to meet with her… “I understand,” she said. “I’m in. I want to do this.”
Duo studied her, gaze unwavering to the point that Relena felt a flush creep into her cheeks, unnerved by the unyielding focus. But she met his eyes and held them. She refused to back down, refused to retreat. She had worked too hard for too long.
Eventually he said, “Alright. Show me the house.”
The house was a stately old thing. Under different circumstances, it would have been an ideal place for historic conservancy. In its heyday, it would have hosted lavish parties, halls filled with music and art. And it could do so again with the right dedication.
But such was not its fate, at least not for now. For now, it was a vector, a map, a ship crossing a dark sea with only Relena at its helm.
No, she corrected herself, He is at the helm. I’m in the boiler room.
She trailed several steps behind Duo as he wandered the house, studying its rooms with such an intensity she wondered what he saw that her layperson eyes could not. She had initially offered to lead him through the twisting hallways but he had waved her off. “The flow matters,” he had said and took off towards the drawing room, leaving her to tag along like a puppy.
She didn’t like it, but didn’t feel like she had much of a choice but to follow. Her gut told her this was important: the path yes, but the following too, somehow.
Eventually they came full circle, ending in the kitchen, and Duo dropped down into a chair at the small dining nook. “I’m almost impressed,” he said, swiping at his bangs. “The house is good.”
Relena almost sighed in relief as she sat to join him. “What’s next?”
Duo ignored the question. “You have a talisman?”
“A locket. From my mother,” Relena touched the necklace at her throat.
Duo’s eyes didn’t follow the movement. “And did you decide on your intention?”
“Yeah,” Relena said and cleared her throat, dropping her hand again. “I, uh—I want to talk to my father again.”
Duo observed her, face stony. And then, “Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s not your intention. If it was, you’d go to any two-bit charlatan and pay to hear poor mimicry of your father’s greatest hits.
“Your intention is the goal. It is the singular purpose of the whole damn thing. You need to know it so that you can recognize it when we get there. I need to know it so I can be your navigator. So, again. And no bullshit this time: what’s your intention?”
Relena took a deep breath. “My father died in a bombing. Terrorism, they said. They haven’t found the culprits and I doubt they ever will. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I want revenge. I want the ones responsible dead.”
Duo listened to her and eventually nodded, as he considered her words. “That is something we can work with, I think. I can do a lot. To keep us safe, to set the stage. But I need to know your intention is pure. And I don’t mean ‘pure’ as in innocent, given the circumstances. No rainbows and puppy dogs. I mean ‘pure’ as in clear. Crystal clear. So is it?”
“Yes.” No hesitation this time.
“Alright,” Duo said with a final nod. “Let’s get started.”
Duo stood in the main entryway to watch the car pull away down the drive, Relena on a mission for their supplies for the coming year. Strange one, he thought as he stepped back into the house, closing the door behind him. But then again they all were. Himself included. Strange and hurting. He shook his head and pulled the rosary out of his pocket, slipping the strand over his head. The familiar weight of it and the crucifix still offered some comfort and grounding.
Heading to the back of the house, he exited through the attached greenhouse to the rest of the grounds. Summer was fading quickly, autumn rolling heavy here in Scotland. He hummed to himself as he gathered his own supplies: stones and dirt, water from the pond, branches broken from living trees…he’d been in a desert last time he had done this. The time before, the Himalayas. He wondered what the gents at seminary would say if they saw him now, helping some rich Londoner get her bloody revenge.
‘Doomed,’ most likely, he mused. Maleficos non petieris vivere, so sayeth man. But what happens when the witchcraft is rectifying the violence driven by hostility, strife, and factions? [1]
“See this?” Duo asked aloud to the world, “this is why I never would’ve cut it as a priest. Too many damn contradictions in a book translated too many times by dudes with agendas. May as well ask the ones who were there when it all happened what they think. And from what I’ve seen, they think we’re all nuts.”
In the distance, a dog barked three times. Duo grinned in the direction of the noise and swept his arms to the side. “And so it begins.”
Together, they unloaded the supplies from Relena’s car and stocked the kitchen, the two freezers she had specially ordered, and the pantry. Enough for a year and then some. She did catch the grimace he made when he found the cans of tomatoes. “Not a fan?” she asked, teasing.
“So long as we break them into itty bitty pieces, it’s fine,” he replied, placing the cans on the pantry shelf.
Afterward, Duo guided her through the house again. He stopped at each room in turn, explaining its symbolism and purpose: instinct, passions, birth and death, light and ark, the elements… Each one had what appeared to be makeshift alters and the floors were marked with chalk or soot or ochre. The natural world brought indoors for their needs. To Relena, it was dizzying.
But then Duo brought them back to the kitchen and said with a grand sweep of his arms, “And this is the kitchen, which will be…the kitchen. We’ll make food, eat food—but only between dusk and dawn—clean dishes, etcetera, etcetera.” Turning to Relena, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“It’s a lot,” Relena admitted.
“It’s a lot to ask,” Duo countered, growing serious again. He crossed to the dining nook and sat down, patting the chair next to him. Relena followed and sat, her mind still racing.
“I’m not going to sugar-coat it. This will be intense. It's a lot to learn, a lot to follow, but a lot to experience too. You’re going to hear shit, see shit. I’m here to tell you it’s all real—you won’t be imagining it or dreaming it. Not here, not with me. Roll with it. I also may not experience it all with you. I’m your guide but this is your journey. The signs are for your benefit, not mine. I’ll try to stay attune, but you’ll need to tell me what you’re experiencing, okay?”
“When would you get worried? When should I be worried?”
Duo huffed a dry laugh. “We are well past the ‘worried’ phase, darlin’. You should be downright scared now, just standing here. Worry is the evolutionary kick in the ass telling you to get off the train. Fear is recognition of what’s coming, the understanding—real understanding—of cause and effect. Choice and consequence. Right now, you should be very afraid.”
In the heavy silence that followed his words, he turned away to pull a plastic bag from his backpack. He then opened it and handed her a withered strip of…something. “Take it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a mushroom. You eat it.”
Hesitant, Relena took the strip of dried fungus between her fingers, studying it. “Is it going to give us visions or something?”
Duo snorted. “Oh if only,” he muttered and pulled a second strip from the bag before closing it again and tossing it into his backpack. “No, this mushroom is going to make us sick as fuck all. An unfortunate side effect of modern day living—gotta cleanse inside and out.” He popped the strip into his mouth and chewed a moment before swallowing. “Be glad we have two functioning bathrooms. Now down the hatch.”
Relena sighed, but resigned herself to her fate and swallowed the mushroom.
Duo watched her and nodded, then gave her a crooked grin. “And now the fun begins.”
He woke her an hour before dawn.
Without a word, his face lit by a solitary candle, he led her to the east wing and then outside. In the damp, foggy morning, Relena wrapped her arms around herself. The ground at their feet were tracks of white that led off to the left and right, disappearing into the mist in both directions. Before her was a meter-wide gap that separated them.
Before she could ask, Duo said, “If I seal this, we are in it till the end. No leaving the ring lest bad things happen. But it’s not sealed yet. Last chance to call this whole thing off.”
Relena turned to face him where he stood one step behind her. At his feet was a bag of rock salt that she hadn’t noticed when they first stepped out of the house. She mulled his words and their implications. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Seal it.”
Duo nodded and passed her the candle. Hefting the bag of rock salt, he poured over the gap just as the first rays of dawn broke through the mist.