Chapter Text
"This stretch of land was Frankie and Maura's pride and joy, though I'm sure I don't have to explain that to you! Says a lot that you were the one in his family he entrusted the deed to all those years ago."
The 'pride and joy' Pelican Town's mayor was referring to stretched out from the old house as far as could be seen by the naked eye, nestled in the valley that dipped below the northern mountain. Eoin's memories of the 'holler' (as his grandfather had always referred to it as) were slim, but fond and untarnished. Looking out across the land being reabsorbed by the enclosing woods, he couldn't decide if his grandparents would be sad to see it in its current state, or happy to see it returning to the wild nature of the valley. But, like many things, it would have been a years long point of playful contention between the two, and the remembrance of their impish mock-arguing (as they often did) nearly pulled a smile to his face.
In truth, the house itself being in its state of disrepair was more upsetting to him than the land's. Even with his contacting Robin, the local carpenter, to arrange for fixing up the abode ahead of his actual arrival, it still had a long way to go in the way of bringing it up to date with modern life. That was ultimately the main hurdle that would take some getting used to -- while the three room layout was similar to his old apartment in the city, the house offered more in the way of actual space. Adjusting to the homey and simplistic atmosphere however, was going to be a major change.
And if Robin couldn't fix the central air conditioning at least, he was sure he would blow a fuse or die of heatstroke. Maybe both.
Eoin leaned on the banister of the small porch, sipping the lemonade Robin had left with him and Lewis while she had disappeared into the house. He had abandoned his jacket inside, the steady spring sunshine already heating him up more than he liked, and was terrified as to what the soon coming summer would be like.
"Have to wonder if that says more about me, or them?" He gave Lewis the coy smirk that years of practice had shown him that people ate up, and knew he was playing his cards right as the charming out of towner when the mayor had to stifle back a chuckle.
"Well, I have to admit it's been quite some time since I've seen your mother or uncle, so I can't be much of a judge. Though..." he paused for a moment, and Eoin's stomach churned, knowing what was coming next. "... Things did seem tense at the funeral."
Eoin sipped at his drink, desperate to keep his face composed and placid at the memory. The way he and his mother had stepped back into the funeral home, all empty smiles despite the sharp swell of pain still echoing across his face. The way he slipped away and was speeding down the highway before anyone could notice he had escaped. Or the way he'd had to remember most of it through a hangover and withdrawals the next morning, looking for his clothes in an apartment he'd never been to.
Tense was an understatement.
"We were all going through a lot." he said casually, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Monika was especially taking it hard."
"Hm, yes. Seemed she was quite distressed at her pop's passing, poor thing." And as the mayor swigged at his own sugary drink, Eoin was glad he had listened for once and taken the "anxiety" medication the court-appointed psych had prescribed to him. Maybe it made him made him feel like a zombie (of all the drugs you could take for fun, why one that just made you tired? ) -- but coupled with the anhedonia of a brain learning how to make dopamine on its own again, it was the only thing keeping him from snapping at the man across from him.
Lewis, even with his style of hospitality teetering close to overbearing, didn't deserve that. 'Seemed' truly was the operative word there -- the older man clearly having no real idea. Because if Eoin was a chameleon, his mother was a damn changeling, warping her image to fit best in the minds of others, and he wasn't sure if he considered the inherited trait a boon or a curse.
Ultimately, he couldn't muster up more than a noncommittal hum in response, and worried he was off to a bad start with the townsfolk, his typical social self lost somewhere in the fog that was his brain.
'You're not here to be a socialite, you're here to get your act together, asshole.'
Shaking himself out of it before he could allow his brain to go down that mental rabbit hole, Eoin reached to brush his shaggy hair away from his face as Lewis started up again, explaining upcoming events and shops around the tiny town. He only half listened as the mayor went on, making noises of affirmation in proper time with the conversation, wondering why he hadn't just shaved his head instead of trying to grow it out.
Startling them out of the one sided discussion, Robin stepped through the screen door, pushing a wayward strand of her fiery red hair behind her ear while she adjusted the tool belt on her hip. When he had met her earlier that day, the bright ginger color had reminded Eoin painfully of his sister. Now, though, he was more focused on the grave look on her face as she turned to him.
"Looks like you're gonna need to call that specialist I mentioned. I don't have the right tools... or really, expertise to get it back up and running again." She gave him a pitying smile, trying to soften the obviously disappointing news. “Unfortunately, I’m a carpenter, not an electrician.”
Eoin kept his body and facial expression under expert control as he got the number from Robin for reference later (arguably, when he could afford it). If he was lucky, the HVAC unit could simply be repaired -- if not, as she told him, the whole thing would have to be replaced. Internally, dark thoughts crept up from the back of his mind, kicking himself for ever thinking he could have managed to make this work on his own.
At least rehab would have had air conditioning. But he'd chosen to keep his pride intact instead.
Now, nearly two weeks had passed since his arrival in town, but again he found himself out on the porch. As it stood, the old window AC unit Robin had managed to scrounge up for him was doing an alright job at keeping the small house from becoming miserably hot during the day, at least for now. Even if it was a bit noisy, and quite possibly on its last legs.
With a blessed cold front moving in, it wasn’t the heat that had woken him up at five in the morning, or what had brought him outside in no more than a pair of thin flannel pants. Dreamed memories of a nightclub, of shattered glass strewn across the sink and floor of a dingy bathroom. When he shot straight out of bed in a cold sweat, the comparative loneliness of his relatively new bedroom to the hospital he'd woken up in before was enough to have him putting on pants and heading out into the early morning air.
He absentmindedly ran a finger across the scar on his forearm, it contrasting starkly against those on his bare chest. Those at least had the benefit of being old and surgical, barely even visible now, nearly ten years later. Those had healed quite nicely, even in the early days. He was hardly a modest person, but being in a relatively unfamiliar and very small town had made him much more cautious about airing that facet of his identity. At least, perhaps, for now. Small towns talked, and this one was just starting to slow down its gossip in regards to him - the last thing he wanted was to reignite the rumor mill.
That part was easier in the city, at least. For the most part, he could disappear into a crowd of many at will. Most people didn't care much about you personally, you were just another in the hundreds of people they passed every day. And so, you had more control of who you stood out to, who you made enough of an impression on to make you worth remembering, at least in most cases. You didn't have that luxury in a small town.
The irony of him, of all people, desperately trying to fade into the background was not lost on him.
But here, leaning on the rickety banister, the sun wasn't even up yet, and Eoin felt comfortable enough in knowing that if anyone was going to drop by unannounced, it certainly wouldn't be now. And if he wasn't about to be bothered...
Reaching into his pants pocket, Eoin pulled out the old cigarette case he'd picked up at a vintage shop in Zuzu, its colorful paisley enamel faded from time. His thumb caught the latch to open the metal booklet which he had outfitted into a stash case, a few joints secured on one side and a much newer, decorated zippo on the other. He took out one that was about half gone, putting it to his lips before taking out the lighter, igniting it and taking a long, practiced drag.
Was it a little early to be getting high? Sure. Could he be bothered to give a shit? Absolutely not.
And in any case, he preferred this over the Xanax. Worked faster, too.
As he let out a smoky breath, his eyes fell on the rather meager plot of a garden he had managed to pull together. His first small batch of parsnips had come up earlier in the week (surprisingly fast, he thought, though what did he know), which, after selling them to Pierre, had afforded him enough money for more seeds to expand his prospects. Which unfortunately meant he'd had to clear more debris to make room, his body still aching from pushing himself too far the past few days. And even at the sign of his progress, he couldn't help the frustrated scowl that crossed his face as he took another drag.
'Your stupid, wiry body wasn't built for this shit.'
The angry little voice in his head was harsh, but (at least in this case) fair. In his life in the city, he'd never really been one to do any proper exercising, and between his metabolism and vice of choice, putting on any kind of bulk was pretty much impossible. He was certainly paying for it now, making the rapid shift to manual labor from a cushy desk job.
Finally -- blissfully, even -- he felt the pot start to take hold in his system, allowing him to get out of his own head and just be for a damn minute. He closed his eyes, focusing no longer on the mixed feelings the garden brought him, but on the other sensations around him. The breeze coming up from the ocean, bringing with it the smell of leaf litter and cedar from the forest around him. Something small rustling around in the underbrush nearby, mixed with a few chirping crickets. If he stepped away from the soupy thoughts in his head, he could almost feel like he was just another part of it, no more so than an ancient sycamore tree or a cauliflower seedling growing only a few yards away. Like he felt it during the few summers he spent here as a kid.
But if he was being honest, that was probably just nostalgia and the pot talking.
A roll of thunder peeled across the valley, bringing Eoin out of his trance just in time to see a dull flash of lightning. The storm was headed this way, out from over the ocean. Had the weather reported a storm on the way? He didn't think it had, though it was entirely possible he’d just forgotten to check. Either way, that made less work for him, and it might give his back a rest. Maybe give him a chance to properly look through some more of his grandparents' left behind belongings, too.
Thunder rang out again, and closer now, the rising sunlight only illuminating the swirling dark clouds. One last puff, and Eoin extinguished what was little more than a roach at this point, putting it away into its case. A shower and some coffee would do him well, right about now.
In the downpour that the weather had turned into, Eoin's jacket and hoodie only barely held back the rain, plastering the hood and his hair to his head. The greenhouse he was kneeling in (or what was left of it) seemed like it might fall apart around him. There wasn't much left to the roof and the once massive panes of glass that had made up the walls were little more than frames at this point.
When, after his meager breakfast, he'd finally began sifting through some of his grandparents' belongings, he'd found the key ring in an old envelope. The brass was tarnished from age, and somewhere in him, he knew what they went to even before seeing the simple tag in his grandmother's handwriting. He'd rarely been allowed into that space as a child -- more than a simple cellar, it was his grandmother's sanctuary. Before her life in the valley, before the war, before even meeting Frankie, Maura was an accomplished botanist from Gotoro. Eoin himself didn't know much about that part of her life, but knew she had moved here to study the ecosystem before meeting Frankie on the job. He'd been a conservationist (and a bit of a hippy) when they'd met, and the two often worked together. When the tensions began to rise between Gotoro and Ferngill, they'd married swiftly, and remained together till Maura's passing when Eoin had just turned 19. She had a green thumb like no one he had ever met before, and it often felt like she could make anything grow, no matter the conditions.
"Listen to them, and they will speak to you." she said to him, once. "They're life, just like us. Even if we're a little different, we can still connect to them."
If anyone could turn this overgrown pasture into a thriving farm, it would have been her. Which was why, even in the pouring rain, he was kneeling on the muddy tile, desperately fighting the rusty lock on the cellar door. He needed to find how she made this place flourish once, find any information on how he could do the same. Because, at this point, failure was not an option.
Failure meant a 12 step program, meant hearing his mother deadname him again and again, meant failing his grandparents when they trusted him with this and it being sold off to Joja Corp. And if he let that happen, his grandparents would haunt him for sure.
And just as he was about to give up, the lock clicked, and a wave of relief washed over Eoin with the rain. He pulled up the door after getting the lock out, and couldn't get into the stairwell fast enough.
It was uncomfortably dark, once the doors were shut behind him. There had definitely been lighting here before, even in the more unfinished part that had served as the actual cellar for storage. But the power had been shut off long ago, and the pitch-black atmosphere made the hair stand on the back of Eoin's neck in spite of his soaked hood. He reached into his coat pocket and yanked out his phone, fumbling with it for a few tense moments before finding some relief in managing to turn on the flashlight. Old shelves, mostly barren, were strewn across the concrete floor, some worse for wear from what he could see. It would take some work to fix up, but the storage was far from his main concern right now.
He shined the flashlight around the concrete room until he saw it -- a large metal door, sturdy enough to withstand even all these years of neglect. He hoped the inside was just as well preserved. Before he could worry about that, though, he had to move the shelf that had fallen across the path of the doorway. Even after the hot shower and ibuprofen, his muscles still ached from overuse, but that still wasn't enough to keep him from getting into the other room.
Eoin sat his illuminated phone on the top of the metal shelf behind him, trying to angle the flashlight toward the door with little success. It would have to do. With the little upper body strength he had, he grabbed at the metal, trying to lift it back into an upright position. It was heavier than he first thought, obviously meant for long term use. He struggled, straining his back and legs trying to will the stubborn thing back onto its legs instead of in his way. Refusing to be outdone by something so stupid, he forced a final burst of spite through himself and hoisted the rack up, when it’d rusted legs buckled and collided with another, knocking them both to the floor. From the force, Eoin stumbled backwards into the shelf behind him, and the light from his phone dropped to the ground with a cracking thud.
"Fuck me..."
He knelt to the cold concrete, picking up the phone to examine it. Yep. The screen was definitely cracked. He would have to try to find the money to fix or replace it, just one more thing to worry about. The flashlight was still running as he stood, assessing the damage to the phone. It shone across the old basement, and as Eoin stood back up, movement at the edge of the light caught his eye.
He froze stock still as his blood ran cold. Was it a trick of the light? Was he imagining things? He hadn’t exactly gotten a lot of sleep last night and his diet was now even worse than it had been in the city, thanks to the sad state of his budget. Maybe being clean for longer than he had managed in a while was making him hallucinate. He turned his flashlight toward where the movement had gone, but there was nothing other than the overturned shelves.
So why couldn't he shake the feeling of being watched ? He'd gotten the feeling occasionally since moving here, but often it was nonsensical and gone as fast as it came. At the time, he’d passed the feeling off as living around much more wildlife than he was used to, but down here? In a cellar even he, with the only key, had trouble getting into? His heartbeat pounded in his ears like a drum. This was why he didn't watch horror movies or go to haunted houses. In situations like this -- even when he knew he was safe and being irrational -- fear gripped him like a vice.
Clearly his fear response was as busted as his phone though. Creepy basement and horror movies? Terrified. Hard drugs and going home with potentially dangerous strangers? No problem.
He took a deep breath like the psych had taught him. In the nose, out the mouth. Some of his composure returned to his body, enough for him to get the keyring and unlock the door, pretending his haste wasn't due to the panic threatening to bubble over in him.
Inside was immaculate compared to the rest of the cellar. It was, after all, basically a lab, and his grandmother kept up with it as such. The shelving here, from what he could see in the flashlight, was more compact and clean, and built into the walls themselves, save for two large filing cabinets next to her steel tanker desk.
Bingo.
He searched through the cabinets’ drawers one by one, till finally, in the bottom of one, he found the box that contained the five journals she had kept up with upon moving here. Each was worn and used, but still in decent enough shape for as old as they were. He sat the box on the desk, sitting gingerly on the old chair he'd pulled out from under the desk, relieved when it didn't give. The journals themselves were organized by content, each for holding different types of data and information, the titles embedded onto their front. Eoin flipped through them as he found them, paying no mind to the order he grabbed them in. But a constant thread of references to another of the journals left gaps in his understanding. ‘ Animal Husbandry ’ and ‘ Produce, vol. 1 ’ were both relatively unmarred by these cryptic notations, but ‘ Produce, vol. 2 ’ and ‘ Flora and Fauna ’ had whole swathes redacted and replaced with footnotes to what was obviously the last notebook, referred to only as ‘ PM ’.
The last notebook (what he assumed must be ‘PM’), sat at the bottom of the box, and was larger than the others and bound in a faded purple, whereas the others were bound in a basic dark gray. It had no title on the front -- just a small bit of filigree -- and was sealed with a lock.
Maura had never been a secretive person, at least she had never seemed that way to him. Sure, she wasn’t as brazenly open as Frankie was, but she wasn’t the type to hoard or gatekeep information, either. She readily shared gardening tips and help with anyone who asked, always eager to help others learn and benefit from their efforts. Why the secrecy now? The whole thing seemed strangely out of character.
Eoin pulled the keyring back out of his pocket, testing the keys to see if one fit in the strange antique lock. But none so much as even fit into the keyhole.
He leaned back into the creaky chair and rested his head in his palm, supported by his elbow on the armrest. Maybe he didn’t know her as well as he had thought, he wondered as he stared the book down as it sat on the desk. He wished he’d gotten more time with her -- with both of them. But after his parents’ divorce and, later, his father gaining custody of him, trying to have a relationship with them had been difficult. Carbry’s job required them to move several times when he was growing up, and, after the split, Monika retaliated by trying to stonewall their interaction with her family, despite them still having a good relationship with their former son in law. She was hurt and angry, and Eoin could understand that, sure, if it hadn’t been for how harshly she had reacted. But with how she had reacted to his burgeoning identity, it had, unfortunately, been for the best. Far from perfect, but better than it probably would have been otherwise.
Those summers he had managed to spend here when he was younger were some of the best in his life. Playing in the garden, sneaking strawberries straight from the vine while Maura pretended not to see. Frankie taking him for walks and picnics on the trails in the woods, putting Eoin on his shoulders so he could pick the prettiest, ripest peach from the tree. Sitting in the tiny kitchen after dinner while Maura helped him keep his hair short -- “like a boy”, he had asked. She mentioned to Frankie how angry Monika would be with it, even as she smiled impishly and sheared down his bright auburn hair, doing her best even with him wiggling excitedly in his chair.
“Papa helped me pick my own name and everything!”
She brushed the fallen hair off of his ears and face, gently taking his cheeks in her hands to examine her handiwork. And once she was satisfied, she looked down at him and smiled brightly.
“And what a handsome name my grandson has! Don’t you think so, Frankie?”
His grandfather clapped his hand on his shoulder, something he’d seen the man do with Mr Lewis or Mr Marlon while they laughed at something over coffee. A simple, masculine gesture, but it sent a swell of excitement and pride through his small body nonetheless.
“Eoin -- an excellent name! Think it suits you even better, too.”
The grief sank in his stomach like a brick of lead. They deserved a better grandson.
He sat there in the damp of his jacket and tried to pull his mind away from the pain of the memory, still leaning on his hand. He needed to distance himself from his thoughts, lest they swallow him whole. He didn’t have time for that, not now.
Eoin picked the purple book back up, intent on putting his focus on it once again. He turned it over in his hands, examining it to see if there was any indication on what it was about, how to open it...
And in looking over the top edge, he saw it. A small, folded corner was barely poking out. He had originally thought it was simply a dog-eared or folded page, but with the way it was folded, he had expected to find a similar warp in the bottom edge -- but there had been none. Small enough that he had nearly missed it, too. He gently pinched his fingernails at the corner (that was about the only way he could grip it without tweezers or some other tool) and delicately tried to pull to see if whatever it was would have any give to it, or if it was attached. To his excitement, it continued to give even as friction forced him to gingerly try to wiggle it free. Soon he could grip it between his thumb and forefinger. Then three fingers. Then both hands.
It gave way easily at that point, popping out from between the pages with no damage to it or the book, thankfully. It was a folded up scrap of paper that seemed to have been placed very methodically between the pages. Eoin’s brows knit together in curiosity as he sat the book back on the desk without taking his eyes off of what, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be a note. With his other hand now free, he unfurled it, hoping for something -- anything , at this point.
Frankie,
If you’re reading this, then unfortunately it means I have passed. Either that, or you’re snooping through my research again, which I asked you specifically not to do!
People have been trying to study this valley for years, to little progress -- you and I both know this, it is part of why we moved here after all. This area’s geography and climate are a haven to many different fascinating species, yes. But I have reason to believe it goes beyond that. Things I have difficulty making sense of as a woman of science. I know you tease me for being “ever the skeptic”, but this goes beyond even the metaphysical hippy shit you ascribe to. As always, I say this with love and affection, just as you tease me with the same intent. Your perspective on the world is something I have always loved you for, even if I don’t always see it through the same lens.
This book is my attempt to make sense of these phenomena. I am sorry I kept this from you, but no good scientist reveals her findings before her research is done. That, and I worry it’s too much, even for you.
For these reasons, I have entrusted the key to Rasmodius. Yes, him. I’m sure you’re having a wonderful laugh at the idea of me collaborating with him, due to my thoughts on him when we first retired here. I cannot say I blame you, it’s strange even to me, even now. Whatever you decide to do with this data, first take it to him.
As always, I love you dearly. I have loved you always, even on days when it seems hard. Because love is work. And my love for you is something I have cultivated longer than anything else. I am proud of that. I am proud of us, who we are as individuals and who we are together. We have built a life together and as I look back on it I am not proud of all my decisions. But I cannot bring myself to regret any decisions which brought us together.
It can never be said enough, I love you,
Maura
Eoin simply sat there and stared at the yellowed paper between his fingers. Where he had been expecting answers, he only found more questions. Who was Rasmodius and why should he be the one to have his grandmother’s books? Why had Frankie never given the book to him, even with the explicit instructions? Most glaringly of all, though -- what ‘phenomena’? What was she even talking about? Maura had never been a superstitious person, she was scientific and rational to her core. It was all so... uncharacteristic.
Finally able to tear his eyes away, he leaned back in the chair and sighed heavily, gingerly folding the paper back up as if one wrong movement of his fingers would turn it to dust. It had been trapped in that book and left in the cellar for over seven years now, after all. Thinking on it, at least his grandfather’s reaction was starting to make more sense. In the wake of her passing, Frankie was devastated. In his defense, it had taken all of them by surprise -- by the time the doctors had found the cancer, it had already made its way to her lymph nodes. They’d given her three months. Through sheer will, she turned that to six and a half. It spoke to her resilience and determination, but even so, it wasn’t nearly enough time for them to grieve the coming loss. Eoin couldn’t imagine Frankie could stomach going through her things here, in a place so saturated with reminders of her. Let her sanctuary be buried with her, like a tomb.
But he could hardly criticize the man for his attempt at escapism. After all, he started frequenting Zuzu’s nightclubs more and more after her death, and hindsight wouldn’t allow him the privilege of thinking that was a mere coincidence.
Drinking and snorting and fucking his brain into being too busy to acknowledge the sinkhole of abandonment that had opened in his chest.
He felt guilty for not crying more. He felt guilty for not crying now , sitting in the undisturbed monument to her life’s work like some kind of grave robber. More than anything, he just felt hollow.
It took less strength than he cared to admit to pull himself away and start packing the books back into the box he’d found them in. That wretched little voice in his head could scratch at the back of his mind and call him selfish all it wanted -- he just wanted to get all this (himself included) back into the little house where he could put some distance between this place and him. He was done thinking about it all, at least for today.
He’d been so focused on not thinking that he’d forgotten about the anxiety from before until the heavy door shut with a thud behind him and echoed through the empty cellar. The dread snuck up on him as he looked around in the dank room, looking for any sign of whatever had been there earlier. And when he didn’t find anything, he hurried himself over to the concrete stairs that lead to the door out before he could dwell on it for too much longer.