Chapter Text
The drive to the Cat’s Cradle is quiet, save a few particularly loud groans of pain from Crimson in the bed of the truck. Ava’s mind whirls as she processes the last hour. She’s had drunks try following her home, sure, but trying to kill her was new. And possession? Magic? She’d be justified in calling Beatrice crazy, and she’d be tempted to if she didn’t know Beatrice was telling her the truth. With each day that passes in Areala’s Gap, she’s had more and more inexplicable encounters like the one she had with the young deer earlier. She’s remembered more of her mother, too. She’d known her mother to be a midwife but perhaps Beatrice would have a different word for what her mother did, what she was. Beatrice seems to be projecting an air of calm, taking slow, steady breaths with one hand on the wheel. However, Ava notices the other is gripped firmly on the odd knife she carries and she spends as much time looking out the side windows as she does the windshield. After twenty or so minutes, they drive past a gigantic oak tree and Beatrice relaxes, just barely. Her head is still on a swivel, but she drops her grip on her knife. A few more minutes, and Beatrice pulls the truck off the road onto a large, open property. In the dark, all Ava can see is the looming shape of a large house with a small light creeping out the window, and another slightly smaller building. Ava suddenly feels the engine echoing in her ears, disrupting the peace and quiet of the clearing. Beatrice drives the truck right up to the large house and shifts into park. She leaps out and dashes to the front door, opening Ava’s door as she passes without slowing. Ava feels like she’s moving through sludge in comparison as she watches Beatrice’s flurry of movement.
“Aunt Suzanne, Vincent, we’ve got a problem.” She yells as she opens the front door and comes back to the truck. She climbs into the bed and hefts Crimson over her shoulder with as much ease as she had in town. Her feet thud softly on the ground as she jumps down again. A scarred, middle aged woman with a cane appears at the door, flanked by the two women JC had flirted with at the store a few days before, and a gray haired man. Beatrice strides towards them and lays Crimson out on the porch. Ava still stands at the truck, frozen and unsure of herself. There’s the crunch of footsteps as two more figures approach from the smaller house, the woman Beatrice had been with at the bar, Mary, and another woman. The name Shannon appeared distantly in her memory.
“Well, what’ve we got here?” Mary asked as they reach the larger house.
“A haint posessed Crimson and tried to kill the new bartender, Miss Ava. She pretty well had him handled herself but she’s in shock.” The group seems unsurprised by the mention of possession, instead most of them focus on Ava and give her a long once over. Some with curiosity, perhaps some fledging respect, and some with blatant doubt. The older woman, Ava assumes she’s Suzanne, takes over.
“Lilith, please get your sedative and burn salve. Camila, I think Miss Silva could use some tea at Mary and Shannon’s.” Lilith and Camila nod and set to their tasks. Mary and Shannon step to Ava.
“Hey again, Miss Silva. This is my wife, Shannon. You wanna get out of the wind?” Mary’s voice seems uncharacteristically gentle and Ava wonders if it’s due to her wife’s presence or if she’s that visibly shaken. Ava nods, and shakes the hand Shannon offers. Shannon pulls her into her side and guides her by the arm to the smaller house. Shannon sits her in a cushioned chair before hanging the lantern and lighting a few more candles before sitting on the couch. Camila had entered the house moments before, already stoking the fire in the small stove and preparing a kettle and several mugs of tea leaves. Ava sits stiffly in the chair, palms on her thighs. She looks almost unfamiliar with the comfortable furniture. No one speaks for a while, until Camila brings the tray of steaming mugs and sugar cubes into the room. She hands one to Shannon and then Ava with a smile. Ava clutches the mug close to her chest, focused on the warmth spreading from her palms and the sharp smell of mint and other herbs in her nostrils. Camila sits beside Shannon on the couch, curling her legs beneath her and arranging her house robe to cover the parts of her legs her nightgown does not. They wait until she’s sipped some of the tea and her breathing levels out to speak.
“So, Ava…Silva you said? That sounds so familiar, wasn’t Aunt Suzanne’s—“ Camila starts but Shanon gives her a gentle nudge and shakes her head and she redirects.
“Nah, I must be misremembering. So you and your brother are from California?”
“Brother? Oh, JC. He’s not my brother. We just say that to keep from scandalizing people. I met him in Salt Lake City a few months ago. He and his friends let me tag along in their travels. We just split up a couple towns back. They wanted to work their way down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but I just…felt like I had to keep coming north. God, I hope he’s okay.”
“You hope he’s okay?”
“He was with me when Crimson, whoever, whatever that was, attacked me. He asked us to help him home and attacked us in an alley. JC was hurt and ran for help before Beatrice showed up. I should have gone back to check on him.” She puts her mug down hastily and stands.
“I should go back. He might need help.”
Shannon stands as Ava does and is able to catch her as she stumbles slightly as her earlier exertion catches up with her. Her hands feel like being too close to the stove through the fabric of her dress, but it’s soothing rather than uncomfortable, and Ava suddenly feels every bit of the weight of the day in her eyelids.
“Miss Ava, you’re in no state to go back to town tonight, and even if you were, it’s not safe. You just rest here and we’ll get you fed and back into town to JC first thing in the mornin’” Shannon inclines her head towards the chair Ava just stood from, and Camila moves to make space on the couch. Shannon presses her to lay down with suggestion rather than insistence, gentle and barely there. Ava still feels so warm and sleepy, and these women of Cat’s Cradle had been so kind and didn’t even know her. She lets herself relax onto the rough-hewn wood and hand-stuffed cushions. Her eyes have nearly closed as Camila draws a blanket over her and she’s faded from consciousness before Shannon whispers “Do you think Aunt Suzanne knows who she is already?”
Towards the back of the property in a fastidiously cleaned shed, Sean Crimson comes to, bleary, sore, and pissed. He doesn’t recognize the shed as his own, but seeing as the last thing he remembered was takin’ a piss outside Mateo’s, and he could now see the pre-dawn blue of 5:30 in the morning outside the window, he reasonably figured he was at the Cat’s Cradle. He sits up, wincing at the stiffness in his muscles from reclining the wooden worktable with nothing but a quilt. By the door, one of the night shift heads Shotgun Mary and her terrifying, taciturn friend Lilith watch him wake. Lilith is working something into a paste in a black mortar, and Mary is absently whittling a piece of wood. Once he’s upright, Mary pockets the wood and a knife, and passes him a canteen. He takes it with a grimacing nod and drinks deeply. The water is cold and bitter, and its bite wakes him further.
“’S just ginseng for the headache. Probably worse than usual.”
Crimson scoffs and takes another swig.
“So one of ‘em got to me? I remember being at Mateo’s and that’s about it.”
Mary nods and leans against the shelf across from him.
“Yep. One of the smarter fuckers, too. Took his time, kept it quiet.”
“What’d I-it do?”
“You know I can’t tell you, Crimson. All I can tell you is that it didn’t succeed.” The man’s face looks more pinched than usual, but he nods and doesn’t press.
“Okay, then what happened to my arms? Hurts like a bitch-Apologies Miss Lilith.”
Lilith speaks up from where she’s been working at another table. “Amateur exorcism. Wasn’t us, but it’s not as bad as it should be. We’ll send you back to town with a salve. Apply it every day for a week. Come back if it starts weeping or doesn’t look better next Sunday.”
“What happens now? How am I supposed to work like this?”
“You tell us what you remember, and we take you home. Tomorrow, you go to Michael and tell him Vincent says it’s the Gap’s turn to take care of you. He’ll keep your pay coming till Lilith says you’re able able to work again. Now, tell me what you remember.”
“There’s not much to remember. You were around most of the night. I went outside to take a piss, er, leak. Apologies, Miss Lilith.” The tall woman scoffs and keeps working over her mortar.
“Then I decided to have a smoke. A couple men in suits were walkin’ by and stopped to ask me somethin’ about the mines. One of ‘em was a little shorter, maybe your height, Shotgun. He seemed like he was the boss. The other was tall, real tall, and skinny. Tall one asked if he could bum a stick ‘n I said sure. The last thing I really ‘member is handin’ him the cigarette. I remember my arms hurtin’ really fuckin’ -Miss Lilith- bad. And then I woke up here.”
“Do you remember what either of their faces looked like?”
“No, it was too dark. Think the short one had long hair, though.” Mary looks at Lilith and nods.
“Sounds ‘bout right. Alright, Crimson, time to get you back to town before anyone realizes you’re not just in your usual weekend soak. Take that salve Lilith just finished and do as she said. Take this vial’n keep it on you. They got you once, and you know that makes it easier for them to get you again.”
“I know, I know. You can’t tell me anything about what happened?”
“Not a chance. Not you.”
“Don’t know when y’all are gonna give the Crimson family some slack. It’s been 21 years since a Crimson willingly helped the Dark.”
Lilith exchanges the canteen in his hand for the pot of salve she’d just finished and a charm on a leather cord and says harshly,
“That’s only three bindings of seven, Crimson, and the record before that isn’t in your favor. It’s not your fault they got you but if the rest of the Gap found out, you know that’d be it for your clan here. We’re already pushing it by letting you go home.”
Crimson flinches at her and nods. He stands, looping the charm over his head to tuck it under his worn shirt and pockets the pot. Mary opens the door and the three walk to the front of the property where the truck remains after Beatrice parked it last night. Crimson stops at the passenger door.
“Well, thank you Miss Lilith for the salve and the charm. We’re uh, lucky to have your skills.” Lilith walks to the porch and goes inside without another word, and Mary gets behind the wheel with a snort.
“I’m just mindin’ my manners!”
“Put your fear boner away, Crimson. She’ll cut it off and you’ll deserve it.”
When Ava wakes, the sun is well on its way to risen. Golden light streams in through the window, the beams catching the edge of the neatly stitched quilt she lay under, and illuminating the face of the woman who’d come to her rescue a few hours before. Beatrice had seated herself in the chair nearest the door at some point in the early morning and fallen asleep. She looks many years younger in her sleep, the stern crease in her brow smoothed out and the bun that was so neatly tied in the bar last night loosened further into her face. Ava rises slowly, hoping to avoid waking her rescuer as she folds the quilt and looks around. Between the darkness of the night and the shock, she’d taken in little of the house she’d be brought to. It feels bigger in the daylight, but still cozy. The flames in the small fireplace have nearly burned completely out. The back of the main room hosts a wood-burning stove, thick wood counter, and table with two hand-carved stools. The walls are decorated with paintings, small studies of the woods, the town of Areala’s Gap, and what Ava assumed was the rest of the property. Between the fireplace and a closed door stands a quilt rack, which she moves to drape the quilt over. As carefully as she tries to move, Beatrice startles awake within a few steps. After a glance around the room, her warm brown eyes settle on Ava.
“Miss Silva, it’s good to see you awake so soon. We feared for how much you’d strained yourself last night. I’m sure you’re hungry, I can take you to the main house to eat and meet everyone when you’re ready.”
“Bea. Hi.” Ava doesn’t miss the faint blush that creeps up Beatrice’s neck at the nickname. “What do you mean, strained myself?”
Beatrice stands and attempts to cover her blush by lifting her hands, swiftly and expertly retying her bun, tucking the errant strands of hair away from her face.
“The first time someone really taps into the Green it’s easy to overdo it, even when using it intentionally. You were acting on instinct and not holding anything back.”
“So there’s a limit to the magic?”
“Not to the Green, no, but there’s a limit to what one body can handle and channel at a time. The capacity grows as you work it, like a muscle.”
“What happens if someone overdoes it?”
“It exhausts the body. I slept for a full day after my first major working, and it went as well as it could have.” Before Ava can ask what that working was, her stomach growls loud enough for Beatrice to hear it a few feet away. Ava grins sheepishly, and Beatrice gives her a small smile.
“Let’s go get you fed.”
They walk to the main house in an easy, almost companionable silence, Ava taking in the clearing in the light of day and Beatrice watching her discreetly. Most of the property is used efficiently. Ava can see the end of a dozen rows of tilled dirt behind the main house and a chicken coop filled with squawking hens. Even so, there’s adornment in places. Flowerbeds, bare for the winter, surround both houses, and the porch is painted a lovely white and blue. They reach the porch and Beatrice runs a few steps ahead to open the door for Ava. The main house is warm and bustling already, Shannon and Lilith setting the table as Mary and Camila put the finishing touches on a verifiable mountain of hotcakes and bowls of canned fruit. Beatrice closes the door behind them quietly, but the four women turn to them as they enter anyway. The chatter recenters on Ava as they ask how she’s feeling.
“Good to see those eyes open, Miss Ava Silva. Gave Beatrice quite a scare when Shannon said you collapsed last night,” Mary says with a grin. Ava turns to Beatrice in time to see her glare in Mary’s direction. She schools her gaze as Ava looks at her,
“I thought you said the exhaustion was normal?”
“Well, yes, it is. But collapsing should concern any practitioner. You’ll find I’m not as flippant about the weight of the Green as others.” Beatrice is honest to God pouting, hard as she tries to hide it and Ava finds it incredibly endearing.
“Good to know someone’s worried about me, Bea.” She reaches out and squeezes Beatrice’s hand quickly before making her way to the table, missing Beatrice’s blush. The women take their usual places, leaving the seat between one of the heads of the table and Beatrice open for Ava. The front door opens again and the older man and woman from the night before, Vincent and Suzanne enter, whispering harshly to each other. They stop as they approach the table and take their seats. Vincent immediately says a prayer over the meal, leaving Ava scrambling to adopt a respectful posture. The table is much more relaxed than it would be at the orphanage, and Ava decides to mimic Mary with a slight incline of her head. At the conclusion of the prayer, Vincent rises and sweeps out of the house again without a word to anyone. The assembled group watches him go with varying levels of interest and concern until Suzanne raps her knuckles on the table.
“Miss Silva, like the rest of my family, I am glad to see you alert and well. My name is Suzanne. You are welcome to stay with us for as long as you need.”
“That’s very kind of you, thank you.
“We would be happy to teach you about the work you can do with the Green, and should you decide to stay long term we would discuss your contribution to the upkeep of the Cat’s Cradle. That is a conversation for another day, however. Take the the time you need to rest.” Ava smiles and Suzanne takes a deep breath.
“By the by, most of the girls call me Aunt Suzanne. You certainly do not have to, but I hope you might one day come to do so because in your case I am, actually, your aunt. Your mother Raquel Silva was once Raquel Baptiste, and my older sister.”