Chapter Text
The nightmare always starts the same way.
Blonney runs through Green Lake's fog-choked woods, lungs burning, blonde hair whipping behind her like a flag of surrender. She can hear it behind her—the crack of branches, the wet sound of hooves on moss, that eerily musical laugh that sounds almost like whistling.
"Run, I'm gonna catch you now!"
The voice is playful. Childlike. Wrong.
She stumbles into the clearing where a cabin stands, windows dark and hungry. The ghost bride materializes on the porch, dress dripping lake water, her face a blur of rotting affection. "Blonney... Blonney..." she moans, reaching with fingers that elongate like taffy.
"Leave me alone!" Blonney screams, but her voice comes out thin, reedy. She's running again, always running, and the forest is closing in like a fist—
The butcher steps from behind a tree, knife gleaming.
The critters pour from the undergrowth, eyes reflecting green in the darkness.
And behind them all, Jessica. Sweet Jessica with her deer ears and too-wide smile, conducting her monsters like an orchestra.
"There's no safety at the lake," she sings, and her voice is everywhere, in the trees, in the water, in Blonney's own pulse. "Monsters at bay, wish I could play, so..."
"Jessica, please—"
"I chase, until you're out of breath."
Blonney's legs give out. She hits the ground hard, tasting copper and dirt. When she rolls over, Jessica is standing above her, silhouetted against an impossible moon. Her shadow falls across Blonney like a burial shroud.
"Don't you want to play?" Jessica asks, tilting her head at that peculiar angle. "Don't you want to stay?"
Her hand reaches down, down, down—
—and Blonney wakes up gasping in her dorm room at Vines State College, her Northwestern University sleep shirt damp with sweat, heart trying to escape through her ribs.
Fuck.
She fumbles for the lamp, knocking over last night's Diet Coke in the process. The can clatters across her desk, spilling over a half-finished storyboard for her Advanced Cinematography project. Perfect. Just perfect.
3:47 AM, according to her Hello Kitty alarm clock—a relic from when she was trying too hard to play the ditzy blonde, before Green Lake, before she stopped pretending quite so much.
Blonney swings her legs out of bed, bare feet hitting the industrial carpet. Her roommate Dani's bed is empty—probably still at that Kappa Sigma party Blonney had blown off to work on her film analysis paper. Or she'd claimed it was for the paper. Really, she just... couldn't do parties the same way anymore. Too loud. Too many people. Too many places for things to hide in the shadows.
She pads to the tiny bathroom she shares with Dani and the girls in the adjacent room, splashes cold water on her face. In the mirror, her reflection looks haggard—dark circles under her eyes, her usually immaculate hair a rat's nest, skin too pale.
"Get it together." she mutters to herself. "It was a year ago. A whole fucking year."
But her hands are still shaking.
She's been having nightmares more frequently lately. Two, three times a week. Her therapist—the one her parents had insisted she see after "the incident," though they still didn't know the full story—said it was normal. PTSD. Trauma response. All very clinical terms for ‘I can't stop dreaming about the deer girl who tried to keep me prisoner in her fucked-up fairy tale.’
Blonney had tried to explain it once, in therapy. How Jessica wasn't really a monster, not in the way people thought. How she was just... confused. Lonely. A child in a body that could command critters and bend reality with stories. How Blonney had created her, in a way—fed her imagination with all those horror stories when they were kids, taught her the language of terror without understanding what she was really doing.
The therapist had given a sympathetic nod and adjusted Blonney's Prozac dosage.
Back in her room, Blonney knows she won't sleep again. She never does, after the nightmares. So she does what she always does—she works. Pulls out her director's notebook, flips to a fresh page, starts sketching out scenes. Her senior thesis film is due in six months, and she's barely got a plot, let alone a script.
‘A story where the nightmare wins’ her brain supplies unhelpfully, in that sing-song voice from the dream.
"Shut up." she tells the empty room.
By the time Dani stumbles in at 6:30 AM, reeking of beer and cheap cologne, Blonney is on her third cup of coffee and has filled seventeen pages with frantic handwriting and shot diagrams.
"Jesus, Blonney," Dani groans, shielding her eyes from the desk lamp. "Did you even sleep?"
"Sleep is for people without ambition." Blonney says automatically, the same line she always uses. It usually gets a laugh.
Dani grunts and face-plants onto her bed.
The day unfolds in its usual rhythm. 8 AM Cinematography seminar where Professor Michaels tears apart her lighting choices. 10 AM Screenwriting workshop where she presents her thesis concept—"a psychological horror about inherited trauma and the stories we tell ourselves"—and gets feedback that amounts to "interesting but needs work." Lunch at the student union, picking at a Caesar salad while her friends gossip about who's sleeping with whom, which she tunes out entirely.
2 PM is her Film History lecture, which she actually enjoys. Today they're watching Nosferatu, and she loses herself in the German Expressionist shadows, the way Murnau uses empty space to create dread. She takes furious notes in the darkness, pen flying across the page.
This is what she loves about film school, when she remembers to love it—the way you can take fear and pin it down, study it, control it through craft and technique. Terror becomes tractable when you understand the grammar of cinema, the language of cuts and angles and lighting ratios.
At least, that's what she tells herself.
It's 4:17 PM when she gets back to her dorm building, juggling her messenger bag, a binder, and her half-empty coffee cup. The November air is sharp, promising snow. Campus is beautiful in that golden-hour way, all red brick and ivy going gold.
"Mail came." chirps Ashley from across the hall as Blonney struggles with her key. "There's something for you by your door. Looks heavy."
"Thanks," Blonney says absently, finally getting the door open.
And there it is.
A large box, maybe three feet by two feet, sitting innocuously in front of her door. Brown cardboard, slightly battered at the corners. No return address, just her name and dorm address written in careful, oddly childlike handwriting:
JENNIFER “BLONNEY” WOODS
DORM 402, BUILDING C
VINES STATE COLLEGE
Her coffee cup slips from her nerveless fingers, splashing across the industrial carpet.
She knows that handwriting. She'd spent hours at Green Lake watching those same careful letters form in a pink diary, spelling out story after story after story.
"No." Blonney whispers. "No, no, no—"
But her hands are already moving, dragging the box into her room, slamming the door behind her. It's heavy, heavier than it should be for cardboard and tape. And it's... warm?
Blonney circles it like it might explode. Maybe it will. Maybe this is Jessica's idea of a prank—mail her a box full of critters, or cursed objects, or Christ knows what else.
She should call someone. Vertin, maybe. Or that Horropedia guy who'd actually seemed to understand how Jessica's mind worked. Or the Foundation—they had people, resources, protocols for this sort of thing.
Instead, Blonney grabs her prop knife from the film equipment corner—her double-trigger revolver prop is in a locked drawer, but she's not sure real bullets would help anyway—and carefully, carefully, slices through the packing tape.
The box makes a sound. A small sound, almost inaudible. A shifting, a breath.
"Jessica?" Blonney's voice comes out strangled. "If you're in there, I swear to God—"
She lifts the flaps.
And there, nestled in a nest of shredded newspaper and what looks like moss—of course it's moss—is Jessica.
Actually Jessica. Curled into an impossibly tiny ball, deer ears folded flat against her skull, eyes squeezed shut, her whole body trembling.
"Surprise?" Jessica whispers, cracking one green eye open. Her voice is hesitant, hopeful, terrified all at once. "I... I mailed myself. Like the packages you told me about. The ones that go everywhere. I put stamps on the box and everything. The man at the... the 'post office'... he looked confused, but I gave him money and he took it."
Blonney's brain short-circuits.
Jessica is in her dorm room.
Jessica, who can command monsters and bend reality and trapped multiple people in her fairy tale prison for what felt like months, is curled up in a cardboard box in her dorm room.
"You," Blonney says, her voice climbing an octave, "MAILED yourself? From where? How? WHY?"
Jessica unfolds slightly, like a frightened fawn—which, Blonney supposes with slightly hysterical humor, is exactly what she is. She's still wearing what looks like Foundation-issue clothes, a simple white dress and that leather restraint belt she always seems to have, but her hair is decorated with new white flowers, and she's clutching a worn notebook.
"From the Foundation," Jessica says, as if this is perfectly reasonable. "I waited until the nice lady—Ms. Campbell, she has the teeth collection—went to her meeting. Then I found the biggest box in the supply room. I made sure to put holes in it so I could breathe! See?" She points proudly to several small punctures in the cardboard. "And I brought my notebook. I've been writing new stories. Better ones. With happy endings, like you told me people prefer."
She looks up at Blonney with those too-wide green eyes, and there's something so desperately hopeful in her expression that Blonney feels her anger deflate like a punctured tire.
"I missed you," Jessica says simply. "In the dreams—the good dreams, not the forest dreams—you were there. And when I woke up, you weren't. So I thought... maybe if I came to you, like in the stories about love and friendship, then the dream wouldn't have to end."
Blonney realizes with a sinking sensation that Jessica is still holding that notebook out to her like an offering. Like a little girl showing her mother a drawing she made in school. Like a friend trying to say sorry in the only language she knows.
Fuck.
Blonney stares at Jessica in her cardboard box for a long moment, mind racing through increasingly absurd options.
Call the Foundation? They'd send a retrieval team, probably have stern words about security protocols, and Jessica would be back in whatever carefully monitored room they were keeping her in. Jessica, who was looking at her with those desperate, hopeful eyes.
Call her parents? Oh hey, Mom, Dad, remember that camping trip that gave me PTSD? Yeah, the deer girl from my nightmares just mailed herself to my dorm. Can you wire some money?
Scream? Tempting, but Dani would be back eventually, and explaining this would be—
"Blonney?" Jessica's voice is small, uncertain. She's starting to curl back into herself, ears flattening. "Are you... are you angry? I can go back in the box. I got out of harder places before. The supply closet had a very tricky lock, but I remembered what Mr. Horropedia said about tension wrenches, and—"
"No!" Blonney says, louder than she intended. Jessica flinches, and guilt stabs through Blonney's chest. "No, don't... don't get back in the box. Jesus Christ."
She drags a hand through her hair, it's still a mess from sleep, but can’t bring herself to care. Think. Think. What would one of her film heroines do? No, wait, that's stupid—her film heroines usually ended up dead or traumatized.
What would Vertin do? Probably something calm and rational and—
"Okay." Blonney hears herself say. "Okay. First things first. Get out of the box. You look ridiculous."
Jessica brightens immediately, unfolding with that peculiar grace she has. One moment she's compressed into an impossibly tiny space, the next she's standing in Blonney's dorm room, stretching like a cat. Her deer ears swivel, taking in every sound—the distant thump of someone's stereo down the hall, voices from outside, the hum of the ancient radiator.
"Your nest is smaller than I expected," Jessica observes, looking around with fascination. "But it smells like you. Like... hairspray and coffee and that perfume that makes my nose itch a little. And sadness." She tilts her head. "Why does it smell like sadness?"
"It doesn't—" Blonney starts, then stops. "Okay, we need ground rules. Right now. Starting with: you cannot say things like that when other people are around."
"Why not?"
"Because humans—" Blonney catches herself. “Regular humans don't talk about how things smell emotionally. They'll think you're crazy."
"Oh." Jessica considers this. "Should I also not mention that I can hear your heartbeat getting faster? Or that the girl across the hall is crying while she talks on the telephone about someone named Connor?"
"Yes, definitely don't mention those things." Blonney pinches the bridge of her nose. A headache is forming behind her eyes, sharp and insistent. "Jessica, you can't just... you can't be here. This is a college dorm. There are rules. Resident advisors. My roommate who will literally be back in—" she checks the Hello Kitty clock, "—probably three hours? And she's going to ask questions when there's a deer girl in our room."
"I'm not a deer right now." Jessica says matter-of-factly. "I'm Anne."
"What?"
Jessica reaches up and touches her ears. Before Blonney's eyes, they seem to... soften? Blur? It's not quite invisibility, more like Blonney's brain suddenly has trouble focusing on them. Her eyes—still the same color, but less unnaturally so. Less like a critter from the depths of Green Lake, more like a girl who might wear colored contacts.
"Anne." Jessica repeats. "From Green Lake! Anne was the good girl, the safe girl. The one everyone liked." She clasps her hands in front of her chest in an eerily accurate mimicry of Anne's gentle mannerisms. "I've been practicing. Watch: 'Oh my goodness, Jennifer, your hair looks so lovely today!'"
Her voice has shifted too—softer, with that slightly breathy quality that Anne had, that Midwestern niceness that made people want to trust her.
Blonney feels something cold settle in her stomach. "That's... that's really unsettling, actually."
"Is it wrong?" Jessica's face falls, the Anne-mask slipping for a moment. "I thought—the Foundation teachers said I should learn to 'blend in' better. Ms. Tooth Fairy said humans feel more comfortable when I seem more human. And you liked Anne. You trusted Anne. So I thought..."
"I thought Anne was real," Blonney says, more sharply than she intends. "I thought she was a person, not a—a disguise you were wearing."
Jessica's ears—still somehow visible to Blonney despite the blurring—droop. "But I was real. Am real. Anne is just... another story I'm telling. Like the butcher was a story, and the ghost bride, and—" She pauses. "You tell stories with your cameras and your scripts. You become different people too. How is it different?"
Damn it, she has a point.
Blonney sinks onto her bed, suddenly exhausted despite the coffee. "Okay. Okay. Let's... let's think about this logically." She's good at logic. That's what film school taught her—break everything down into component parts, solve one problem at a time.
"Problem one: You're AWOL from the Foundation, which means they're going to notice you're missing eventually."
"Tomorrow morning," Jessica supplies helpfully. "They do room checks at 8 AM. But I left a note saying I was going to the 'medical wing' for testing. So maybe they won't check until 9 AM? Or 10 AM? The Foundation is very busy with important things."
"Jesus." Blonney runs both hands through her hair now. "Okay. Problem two: My roommate. Dani. She's going to come back, probably drunk, and she's going to see you."
"I'll be Anne," Jessica says with confidence. "Anne from... from a nearby town. We met at a ‘library’. I'm visiting for the weekend. Humans have friends visit, don't they? I've seen it on the television in the common room."
Blonney blinks. She’s... not wrong, actually. It's a plausible cover story, as long as Jessica can maintain the Anne persona and not, say, start talking about eating tooth fairies or conducting critter orchestras.
"Problem three," Blonney continues, "is where the hell are you going to sleep? We have two beds, no space for—"
"I can sleep in my box!" Jessica offers brightly. "I'm very comfortable in small spaces. At the Foundation, my room is much smaller than this, and they lock the door at night, and sometimes I can hear the other Arcanists screaming in their nightmares—" She pauses, tilting her head. "Is that too much information? Ms. Tooth Fairy said I shouldn't share 'upsetting details' with people who aren't doctors."
Blonney feels that cold sensation in her stomach intensify. She knew, intellectually, that the Foundation wasn't exactly a resort. But hearing Jessica talk about it so casually...
"You're not sleeping in a cardboard box," Blonney says firmly. "We'll... figure something out. Maybe the floor? I have extra blankets."
"We could share your bed!" Jessica suggests with that same unsettling innocence. "In the stories, friends have sleepovers. They braid each other's hair and tell secrets and—"
"Absolutely not." Blonney's voice comes out strangled. The last thing she needs is to wake up from another nightmare with Jessica right there. Or worse, to not have a nightmare because Jessica is right there, which would raise entirely different, more complicated questions.
Jessica's face falls again, and Blonney feels like she just kicked a puppy.
"Floor." Blonney repeats, softer. "With blankets. It'll be... cozy?"
"Okay." Jessica clutches her notebook tighter. "Blonney? Can I... can I show you what I wrote? I've been practicing. Stories with happy endings. Like you said people prefer."
And there's something so achingly earnest in her voice that Blonney's defenses crumble entirely.
"Yeah." she sighs. "Yeah, okay. Show me."
Jessica's face transforms—pure joy, unguarded and bright. She settles on the floor, patting the space beside her like they're kids at a campfire again. And despite everything—the absurdity, the danger, the sheer impossibility of this situation—Blonney finds herself sliding off the bed to sit beside her.
Jessica opens the notebook with reverent care. The pages are covered in that same careful, childlike handwriting, but the stories...
"'The Girl and the Deer.’" Jessica reads aloud, "Once upon a time, there was a girl who was very sad. She lived in a big house with people who didn't understand her. One day, she met a deer in the forest. The deer was also sad and lonely. But when they were together, they weren't sad anymore. They had adventures and told each other stories and—"
She continues reading, voice taking on that rhythmic, fairy-tale quality. The story is simple, almost painfully so, but there's something genuine in it. Something raw and hopeful and desperately trying.
Blonney realizes, with a mix of horror and something she can't quite name, that the girl in the story has blonde hair.
"Jessica." she interrupts gently. "Is this... is this about us?"
Jessica looks up, blinking. "Yes? Stories are always about something real. You taught me that. 'Write what you know.' That's what your notebook said. So I wrote about knowing you."
Blonney's throat feels tight. "And how does it end?"
Jessica turns to the last page, written in slightly shakier handwriting, like she was nervous while writing it:
"'And they lived happily ever after, together, and no one was lonely ever again. The End.'"
Silence stretches between them, broken only by the distant sounds of college life—laughter, music, the perpetual hum of communal living.
"That's not really how life works." Blonney says finally. "People don't just... fix each other. Real life is messier than that."
"I know." Jessica says quietly. "Ms. Tooth Fairy explained. About how the Foundation is teaching me to be more... independent. How I can't just keep people because I'm lonely. How friendship is about choice, not capture." She traces one finger over the words on the page. "But I chose to come here. And you can choose to send me back. That's... that's how it works now, isn't it?"
And Blonney realizes this is the test. The real one. Not whether she can hide Jessica from her roommate or explain the situation to the Foundation. But whether she’s going to do what Jessica expects—what everyone at Green Lake had tried to do—and run away.
"I'm not sending you back," Blonney hears herself say. "Not yet, anyway. But we need to call someone. Let them know you're safe. Because I guarantee you Tooth Fairy is going to have a heart attack when she finds you missing, and Vertin will probably mobilize a whole search team, and—"
"Can it wait?" Jessica asks. "Just... just until tomorrow? I came so far. And I wanted to see your world. Your dorm room and your movie equipment and—" Her eyes land on something across the room. "Is that your camera?"
She's looking at Blonney's prized possession—a used 16mm Bolex she'd bought with money saved from three summers of waitressing. It sits on her desk, next to scattered film canisters and editing notes.
"Yeah," Blonney says. "That's Roxanne. My baby."
"Roxanne," Jessica repeats, like she's tasting the name. "that's pretty. Can you show me how it works?"
And despite everything—the absurdity, the complications, the fact that she's harboring what is technically a fugitive supernatural entity in her dorm room—Blonney finds herself saying yes.
This is what she knows. This is safe territory. Film, cameras, the technical craft of storytelling.
"Okay.” she says, standing and offering Jessica a hand up. "But first, we need to establish some rules for when Dani gets back. Rule one: You're Anne. Anne from..." She pauses. "Where did Anne say she was from?"
"A town near Green Lake." Jessica supplies. "But that's where the campsite is. Maybe Anne moved? People move in stories all the time."
"Right. Anne from... Columbus. That's generic enough. You're visiting for the weekend. We met at a film symposium—no, wait, the library. The film symposium would require you to know about actual films."
"I know about films!" Jessica protests. "I watched seventeen of them in the Foundation common room. There was one about a man who couldn't die, and one about a woman who could talk to ghosts, and one about—"
"Okay, okay!” Blonney holds up a hand. "We'll workshop your cover story. But right now, Anne rules: You speak softly. You smile a lot but not too much—remember, regular amount of teeth showing. You don't mention anything about critters, the Foundation, Green Lake, eating tooth fairies, or how things smell emotionally. Got it?"
Jessica nods seriously, her expression almost comically solemn. "Soft voice. Regular teeth. No truth about anything interesting."
"That's... basically correct, yes."
"Being human sounds exhausting."
"You have no idea." Blonney mutters.
And then, because the universe has a cruel sense of timing, she hears the key in the lock.
Dani is back early.
"Box!" Blonney hisses. "Get rid of the box!"
Jessica moves with startling speed, grabbing the cardboard and its nest of newspaper and moss, looking around frantically for somewhere to hide it. Blonney points desperately at the closet—already overflowing with clothes, shoes, and film equipment, but what choice do they have?
Jessica shoves the box in just as the door swings open, and Blonney barely has time to position herself casually against her desk, heart hammering, before Dani stumbles in.
"—no, Brad, I told you, she's not interested—" Dani says into her Nokia brick phone, then stops short when she sees Jessica standing in the middle of the room, hands clasped nervously in front of her. "Oh. Uh, I'll call you back."
She hangs up, eyes moving between Blonney and Jessica with unconcealed curiosity.
"Dani!" Blonney says, her voice coming out too bright, too loud. "You're back early! I thought you'd be at the party all night."
"Brad was being a dick." Dani tosses her jacket onto her bed, where it joins approximately fifteen other jackets in various states of clean-to-dirty. She's wearing a Baby Phat velour tracksuit that probably cost more than Blonney's camera, dark hair in those tiny braids that probably took six hours at the salon. "So who's this?"
Jessica opens her mouth—
"This is Anne.” Blonney cuts in quickly. "Anne from Columbus. We met at the library last month, remember? I mentioned her?"
Blonney had definitely never mentioned any Anne.
"Right." Dani says slowly, clearly not remembering because it never happened. But she's also three beers deep and dealing with Brad-drama, so she's willing to roll with it. "Hey, Anne."
"Hello!" Jessica says, and thank God her voice comes out in that soft Anne-register. "It's very nice to meet you. Jennifer has told me so much about you."
"Jennifer?" Dani mouths at Blonney, eyebrows raised.
Blonney closes her eyes briefly. Right. She goes by Blonney to literally everyone except her parents and, apparently, Jessica.
"Anne's kind of old-fashioned." Blonney says weakly.
"I like formal names!” Jessica adds, with an earnestness that's almost painful. "They're more... proper. Like in the older stories. 'Elizabeth' instead of 'Lizzie.' 'William' instead of 'Billy.'" She's clearly pulling from whatever period pieces they'd let her watch at the Foundation.
Dani is still looking at Jessica with open curiosity, and Blonney realizes with creeping horror what she's seeing: Jessica in that simple white Foundation-issue dress, auburn hair woven with white flowers, leather belt cinched at her waist like some kind of fashion statement. Even with her deer features blurred, there's something ethereal about her, something not-quite-right in a way that reads as exotic rather than supernatural.
And Jessica is just standing there, ramrod straight, hands clasped, like she's waiting for inspection.
"So…" Dani says, dropping onto her bed. "Columbus, huh? What brings you all the way here?"
Jessica's eyes dart to Blonney, panicked.
"She's visiting for the weekend," Blonney jumps in. "I invited her to check out campus. She's thinking of applying for the film program next year."
"Oh yeah?" Dani perks up a little. She's in the business school herself, but she likes having a roommate in the arts—makes her feel cultured by association. "What kind of films are you into?"
"Horror!" Jessica says immediately, and at least that's honest. "Stories about monsters and the people who... who try to understand them instead of just running away."
There's something pointed in the way she looks at Blonney when she says it.
"Intense." Dani says appreciatively. "Better than the pretentious art-house crap Blonney usually watches." She pauses. "No offense, Blonney."
"Full offense taken, thanks."
"So where are you staying?" Dani asks Jessica. "The Residence Inn on Route 40? That's where my parents stay when they visit."
Jessica blinks. "I'm... staying here? With Jennifer?"
The silence that follows is excruciating.
"Here." Dani repeats. "In our dorm room. Where we have exactly two beds and approximately negative square footage."
"I don't need much space," Jessica says quickly, earnestly. "I can sleep on the floor. Or in small spaces. I'm very good at making myself compact—"
"Jessica." Blonney says, then catches herself. "Anne. What Anne means is, I told her she could crash here for the weekend. Just... temporarily. She doesn't have much money for a hotel, and—"
"Girl, you should have told me." Dani interrupts, but she doesn't sound mad, just exasperated. "We could have cleared some floor space, at least. Made it less of a disaster zone." She looks around their room, which is indeed a disaster zone—Blonney's side covered in film equipment, storyboards, and empty coffee cups; Dani's side an explosion of designer clothes, makeup, and textbooks she's never opened.
"I can help clean," Jessica offers. "I'm very good at organizing. At the—" she catches herself, "—at home, I used to arrange things by size and color and how sharp they were."
Dani laughs. "How sharp they were? What, were you living in a knife store?"
"Something like that.” Jessica says seriously.
Blonney decides this conversation needs to be redirected immediately.
"So what happened with Brad?" she asks Dani, who's always willing to talk about her on-again, off-again disaster of a relationship.
It works. Dani launches into a detailed explanation of Brad's latest transgression (something about him dancing with a Tri-Delta girl), and Jessica settles onto the floor, carefully arranging herself with her legs tucked under her skirt.
Except—shit—the skirt isn't quite long enough for what's underneath.
Blonney can see it now, the way Jessica is sitting. The slight awkwardness of her posture, like someone trying to fold a lawn chair that doesn't quite bend right. Because below that white dress, below where her human torso ends, Jessica isn't human at all.
She's desperately trying to tuck her legs—all four of them—into a position that might pass as normal in the dim light, but there's too much limb, and if Dani actually looked—
"Anne," Blonney says loudly, interrupting Dani mid-Brad-rant. "Why don't you sit on my bed? The floor's kind of gross."
"I don't mind gross." Jessica says, but she catches the edge in Blonney's voice and carefully unfolds herself, moving to sit on the edge of Blonney's bed instead. The mattress is high enough that her dress pools around her, hiding everything that needs hiding.
"Anyway," Dani continues, apparently noticing nothing amiss, "I told him if he wants to act single, he can be single, you know?" She sighs dramatically. "God, I need to shower. I smell like Natty Light and bad decisions."
She grabs her caddy of shower supplies and a towel. "Anne, there's only one shower running—ancient pipes or whatever—so I'll probably be like twenty minutes. Make yourself at home. And Blonney?" She points a finger. "You better tell me the real story of how you two met, because I know you haven't been to the library for non-school reasons in your entire life."
Then she's gone, and Blonney can breathe again.
"That was terrible." she says, slumping against her desk. "You almost—your legs were—"
"I know." Jessica says miserably. "I forgot. When I'm Anne, I'm supposed to have two legs, not four. It's hard to remember what shape I should be." She looks down at where her dress hides her body. "At the Foundation, they said I should practice holding the shape for longer. But it makes me tired. And dizzy sometimes."
Blonney pinches the bridge of her nose. "Okay. New rule. When you're sitting, you're on a bed or a chair. Somewhere high enough that your—" she gestures vaguely, "—everything is covered."
"My deer half.” Jessica supplies helpfully.
"Yes. That."
Jessica fidgets with the edge of her dress, not meeting Blonney's eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm being difficult. This is why Ms. Tooth Fairy said I needed more socialization practice before I could have 'outside privileges.' But I couldn't wait anymore." Her voice drops to almost a whisper. "The dreams got worse. You were running from me in all of them. And when I woke up, you were never there. So I thought if I could just see you, prove that I wasn't the monster from the nightmares, then maybe..."
She trails off, and Blonney sees her shoulders hunch, her whole body trying to make itself smaller.
"Then maybe I'd stop being so alone.” Jessica finishes quietly.
And damn it, Blonney's heart does something complicated in her chest.
She sits down on the bed next to Jessica—carefully, leaving space between them. "You really can't be here," she says, but her voice is gentler now. "The Foundation is going to lose their minds. My parents would lose their minds if they knew. And we both know this isn't... I mean, you can't just run away from your problems."
"You ran away from yours." Jessica points out. "You left your family who wanted you to be human. You came here to make movies about monsters because that's what you really love. How is this different?"
"That's—" Blonney starts, then stops. "That's completely different. I'm not... I didn't..."
But the protest dies in her throat because Jessica isn't entirely wrong.
Blonney had run. From her parents' expectations, from the perfect human community they'd moved to, from the part of herself that could make things real with pink spray paint and willpower. She'd run to film school, buried herself in the acceptable creative outlet of other people's monsters, kept her own locked away.
And she'd been having nightmares about Green Lake for a year.
"Okay." Blonney says. "Okay. Here's what's going to happen. You can stay tonight. Just tonight. Tomorrow morning, we're calling Vertin or Tooth Fairy or someone from the Foundation, and we're figuring out the adult way to handle this."
"Tomorrow.” Jessica agrees, a little too quickly.
"I mean it, Jessica. We're not—this isn't a story where you can just wish yourself a happy ending."
"I know." Jessica finally looks at her, those green eyes serious. "But stories need time to develop. That's what you wrote in your notebook, the one I found. 'Good stories don't rush. Let the characters breathe.' So I'm asking for time to breathe."
Blonney is saved from having to respond by her stomach growling audibly.
Jessica's head tilts. "You're hungry. I can smell it—" She pauses. "Sorry. Anne wouldn't say that. Anne would say... 'My goodness, Jennifer, perhaps we should get some dinner?'"
Despite everything, Blonney laughs. It comes out slightly hysterical. "Your Anne voice is really unsettling when I know it's fake."
"All voices are fake." Jessica says philosophically. "We all choose which parts of ourselves to show. You use different voices too. The one for professors, the one for your parents, the one for me..." She pauses. "I like the one for me best. It's more real."
Before Blonney can unpack that statement, Dani's voice echoes from down the hall: "Blonney! Shower's free!"
"Okay." Blonney says, standing. "I need to think. And shower. And possibly scream into a towel. You—" she points at Jessica, "—stay here. Don't answer the door. Don't touch my film equipment. Don't... just don't do anything weird."
"What counts as weird?" Jessica asks innocently.
"Use your best judgment."
"Didn’t my judgment think mailing myself in a box was a good idea?"
"May God help us both," Blonney mutters, grabbing her shower caddy.
When Blonney returns twenty minutes later—hair damp, skin pink from too-hot water, having not screamed into a towel but having come close—she finds Jessica exactly where she left her.
Sort of.
Jessica is still on the bed, but now she's surrounded by approximately half of Blonney's closet. Dresses, skirts, jeans, and shirts are spread across the comforter in what might be an organizational system or might be complete chaos.
"I thought I said don't do anything weird," Blonney says flatly.
"You said don't touch the film equipment." Jessica counters, holding up a pink crop top with rhinestones spelling out 'PRINCESS.' "Is this really you? Or is this costume too?"
Blonney snatches it away. "That's from high school. I don't—I haven't worn that in years."
"But you kept it." Jessica tilts her head in that way she does, like a bird examining something curious. "In stories, people keep things that matter to them. Things that remind them of who they were."
"Or things they're too lazy to throw out." Blonney says, but she folds the shirt carefully instead of tossing it. "What are you doing with my clothes anyway?"
"You said Anne needs to blend in. This dress—" she plucks at the simple white Foundation-issue garment, "—it's what I had on me when we first met. But it's not what college girls wear. I've seen them. They wear..." She picks up a pair of low-rise jeans, studies them with scientific interest. "These. With the glitter on the pockets. And shirts that show their stomachs."
"It's called fashion. Or in this particular case, throwing up on denim."
"Can I try?" Jessica asks, and there's such genuine eagerness in her voice that Blonney finds herself nodding before she can think better of it.
"Yeah, okay. But—" she pauses as Jessica starts to stand, to pull the dress over her head right there in the middle of the room. "Wait! Jesus, at least go behind the—"
Too late. The dress pools at Jessica's feet—or rather, at her hooves. She's completely unselfconscious about it, reaching for the jeans with innocent curiosity.
"Those aren't going to work." Blonney says, her voice coming out strangled.
Jessica looks down at herself, then at the jeans, and her face falls. "Oh. Right. The legs." She sits back down heavily on the bed, and Blonney can hear the springs protest under the unexpected weight distribution. "I always forget. In my head, when I'm Anne, I have two legs. But then I look down and..."
She trails off, and there's such genuine disappointment in her expression that Blonney feels something soften in her chest.
"Okay." Blonney says, rifling through the clothes on the bed. "Okay, we can work with this. You need something that... here."
She pulls out a long flowy skirt—one of those tiered hippie things she'd bought for a costume design class and never worn. "This. It's long enough to hide... everything. And then—" she grabs a fitted black tank top with spaghetti straps, "—this on top. Simple. Casual. Very 'college girl visiting for the weekend.'"
Jessica takes the clothes reverently, like Blonney just handed her treasure. "Will I look normal?"
"You'll look normal enough."
Jessica pulls the tank top on—that part works fine, her torso moving like any person's would. But the skirt requires some engineering. Blonney has to help her figure out how to arrange it so it drapes properly over her deer body, hiding the hindquarters while still allowing for movement.
"It tickles." Jessica says, giggling slightly as the fabric settles. "Like grass on my legs. Is this what wearing clothes always feels like for humans?"
"Pretty much. You get used to it." Blonney steps back, assessing. "Okay. You look... actually, you look kind of good."
The outfit works better than it has any right to. The black tank top makes Jessica's auburn hair pop, and the long skirt moves with her in a way that seems intentional, artistic even. She could be any art student, any girl experimenting with bohemian style. As long as nobody looked too closely at her feet. Or asked her to walk anywhere complicated. Or—
"Can you walk in that?" Blonney asks. "Without, you know, obviously clip-clopping?"
Jessica stands carefully, takes a few experimental steps. Her hooves make soft sounds against the industrial carpet, but it's muffled enough that it might pass for regular footsteps. Might.
"I can be quieter!" Jessica says, and demonstrates, moving almost silently across the room. "At Green Lake, I learned to walk without sound. For hunting. For hiding. For—" she catches herself. "—for the stories."
"Right. The stories."
There's a beat of silence, and then Jessica is suddenly in front of Blonney, close enough that Blonney can see the faint otherworldly flecks in her green eyes.
"Thank you.” Jessica says softly. "For not sending me away immediately. For helping with the clothes. For..." She pauses, searching for words. "For not looking at me like I'm a monster."
"You mailed yourself in a box." Blonney says, aiming for levity. "That's pretty monstrous behavior."
"But you're still here."
"Yeah.” Blonney admits. "I am."
Jessica smiles—that wide, genuine smile that shows too many teeth—and Blonney has to look away before she does something stupid like smile back just as widely.
The door bursts open. Dani is back, hair wrapped in a towel, face freshly scrubbed.
"Oh good, you're both still—whoa." She stops, taking in Jessica's new outfit. "Anne, you look amazing! Is that your stuff, Blonney?"
"She didn't bring much.” Blonney says. "I'm lending her some things."
"That skirt looks way better on her than it ever did hanging in your closet." Dani flops onto her bed, apparently comfortable enough with the situation now. "So, real talk. What's the actual story? You two dating or something?"
Blonney chokes on air. "What? No! We're just—she's just—"
"Friends." Jessica supplies, but there's something uncertain in her voice, like she's testing the word. "We're friends. Jennifer helped me through a difficult time."
"Uh-huh." Dani doesn't look convinced. "Well, whatever. I'm not judging. But you should know that Mrs. Patterson does room checks sometimes, and she's super weird about overnight guests. So if Anne's staying, we need a game plan."
"Room checks?" Jessica asks, alarmed.
"Our RA. She's like, obsessed with rules." Dani rolls her eyes. "But she usually just knocks and pokes her head in. As long as everything looks normal, she doesn't care."
"Define normal." Blonney says weakly.
"Like, no boys, no drugs, no open flames. The usual." Dani yawns. "Anyway, I'm exhausted. Brad drama is more tiring than cardio." She starts setting up her elaborate nighttime routine—face masks, eye masks, retainer case.
Blonney looks at Jessica, who's standing in the middle of the room looking uncertain. The sun has fully set now, and the room is lit only by the desk lamps, casting everything in warm yellow light.
"Okay." Blonney says quietly. "Sleeping arrangements. I'll get the extra blankets."
She pulls out the spare bedding from the closet—careful not to disturb the cardboard box shoved in the back—and starts making a nest on the floor between the two beds.
"Is this okay?" she asks Jessica, who's watching with fascination.
"It's perfect," Jessica says, kneeling down to test the blankets. "Soft. Warm. Better than my room at the Foundation. There, the blankets are scratchy and they smell like medicine."
"You can have my pillow too," Blonney offers, grabbing her spare. "The good one, not the flat one."
Jessica takes it like it's something precious. "In the stories, when people share their things, it means they care. Is that true? Or is that just stories?"
"Both, I think," Blonney says. "Stories are true, just not literally."
"I like that," Jessica murmurs, settling into her makeshift bed. "True but not literally. Like how I'm Jessica but I'm also Anne. Like how you're Jennifer but also Blonney."
Dani interrupts from her bed, face mask making her look like a cucumber-scented monster. "Are you two always this intense? Because if so, you're going to give me emotional whiplash."
"Sorry." Blonney says automatically.
"Don't apologize. It's kind of sweet, actually. In a weird way." Dani reaches over to turn off her lamp. "Night, you two. Don't stay up too late being philosophical or whatever."
The room plunges into darkness, except for the glow from Blonney's desk lamp. Blonney climbs into her own bed, hyper-aware of Jessica on the floor beside her. She can hear her breathing—steady, calm, already relaxing into sleep in a way Blonney envies.
"Jessica?" she whispers.
"Yes?"
"Tomorrow we really do have to call someone. This can't... it's not sustainable."
"I know." Jessica whispers back. "But tonight, can we pretend? That I'm just Anne visiting? That everything is normal?"
Blonney should say no. Should maintain boundaries. Should remember that this is the same being who trapped people in a horror story.
"Yeah.” she says instead. "Tonight we can pretend."
There's a rustling as Jessica adjusts in her blanket nest. Then, quietly: "Blonney? I don't want you to have nightmares anymore. About me, about Green Lake. I know I caused them. I'm sorry."
"It's not—" Blonney starts, then stops. "It's complicated."
"Most things are.” Jessica says wisely. "That's what Ms. Tooth Fairy says. She says people are complicated stories, and you can't understand them in just one reading."
"She's right."
"Will you tell me your story someday? The real one, not the one you show everyone?"
Blonney stares at the ceiling, at the glow-in-the-dark stars she'd stuck up there in the first week of freshman year in a fit of nostalgia.
"Maybe." she says. "If you tell me yours."
"Deal.” Jessica says, and Blonney can hear the smile in her voice.
Silence settles over the room. Dani's breathing evens out into soft snores. The radiator clanks and hisses. Outside, someone is drunkenly singing "Something in the Way"
Blonney closes her eyes and waits for sleep, for the nightmares that have haunted her for a year.
They don't come. Instead, she dreams of a meadow, and wildflowers, and something that might be music or might just be the wind.