[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen took her own car. She’s stubborn like that.
[Silence] She wouldn’t have fit in the Barracuda anyway! And she’s not sitting on anyone’s lap but Decker’s. And Decker was driving. And no one else gets to drive.
[Evan McCollach] When the pack finally arrives in Morine Hills, near the church that was hopefully the same one in AnneMarie’s vision from the bog. They had to find something that was different from the past, something that was tainted in wyrm. He didn’t know exactly what to look for. But he was here anyway.
“So how close to the Hive are we again?”
[Ruhiger] AnneMarie, though silent, seems to be the most prolific.
Thus, she arrives with Silence, in the Baracuda. Once they arrive at the church, she studies it quietly, a long moment, before stepping from the car and pulling up the back seat to allow the others room to get out. She is, as she always is, with one difference. Today, a stylish scarf, silk of course, is tied around her throat, hiding some of the damage that remains from their previous Slog. Other then that, she is as she always is.
Hand tuck into the pocket of her slacks, as she searches the Church building for something she would recognize. Many churches look the same – sterile, white… holy in some way, to some. This is no different. A glance toward Silence, and then if not stopped, she starts up the walk. She had seen the glimpse of the church from the back, after all.
[Neon Jesus] The suburb is a mixture of new suburban developments – oversized McMansions of no particular architectural style and too many strange and ugly architectural details – older suburban developments (split-levels, popular in the 80s, now-tiny ranch rectangles from the 50s) and much older farmhouses, all of which hug the narrow periphery of what was once a small town, before it was enveloped – somewhat – by modern Chicago’s sprawl. The town itself has a main street quaintly titled Main Street, and although there are older developments, the genuine real estate boom in Elk Grove is a phenomenon of the late 90s and 2000s.
The town is easy to find on the map, and new home listings are easy to find in the Sunday paper, in the back portion of the lifestyle section where helmet-headed real estate agents happily advertise their expertise in “new developments” with “great new financing options” regarding “fabulous and SAFE!!!” gated communities, among other amenities.
Among the township’s landmarks are its high school, a brick building with athletic fields that back up against the Fox River, about a mile outside of town and very, very close to Moraine Hills State Park, Goodwin City Park, right in the half-deserted, half-quaint downtown, and the Tabernacle of the Divine Saviour, a mega-church affiliated with a larger mega-church based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There is also a very tasty “Dairy Freeze” restaurant. Yum, ice cream.
At night, the glow from the neon Jesus (with animated blood dripping from the wounds in his hands, feet and side) lights up the surrounding tracts bristling with trees, stark growth, young. A cornfield is all furrows to the south, the first blush of growth. There is a subdivision beyond that, full of semi-detached homes marketed as “Pine Run” – raw homes built far too close together, without trees of any kind.
The Tabernacle of the Divine Saviour is no quaint turn of the century church. It is a massive, sprawlingly modern complex, with huge parking lots surrounding several large metal buildings. The largest of these – the church proper – has had a brick facade appended to it, and tall, elegant windows through which huge crystal chandaliers are visible. Even on a Tuesday night, there is activity here. The parking lot is perhaps a quarter full. Lights are on in both the main church building, and in the largest of the three outbuildings. A dozen or more kids are outside, as well, hanging around a recently installed sports court, just in front of an elaborate (and biblically themed) playground, shooting baskets in sufficiently random fashion that it is clear they have yet to organize a game.
[Silence] “Close,” is the terse answer, as the Modi slams the door on the ‘Cuda and flexes the stiffness out of his shoulders after the long drive. It was hot all day, and it’s still hot now, humidity blanketing the heat in the area. He’s in a sleeveless jersey, a wifebeater, and his right arm seems very bare without the axe-tattoo.
“Coupla miles maybe,” he adds. “Jus’ cross tha river. But this church,” he steps up onto the curb with the deliberation of a man fording a river, “b’lieve it ‘r not, is the only untainted buildin’ in tha whole town.”
The church: with its garish neon Jesus and its rather un-meek furnishings. Imogen had made her way here in her own car, perhaps taking her own highways. The Modi looks around, now, for the final member of their little expedition here.
[Imogen Slaughter] The twenty year old Dodge Lancer – held together with duct tape, rust and perhaps a little hope (or maybe just the efforts of a good mechanic) parks behind the Barracuda and Imogen exits, shutting the door behind her. She does not excuse her delay; simply steps up to join them, her hands sliding into the coat pocket of her jeans. Her eyes sweep the complex – lingering briefly on the children, her expression bordering on a frown, and then turns her attention back.
AnneMarie starts to walk away, and Imogen flicks her gaze toward the neon jesus – and the trees that surround them.
“I found a story,” she says, her accent clear, British, “’bout Kanekuk’s last daughter. It referenced a tree; if it’s there, I think I’ll recognize it.” One might think she’s addressing Silence directly – but it is easily said that she is addressing no one in particular.
[Ruhiger] She pauses, as they speak, having gone just enough to see more of the church yet still hear the conversation.
Imogen has another story of a tree, and the daughter. She looks over with pale gaze, and then returns to studying the church, hoping for anything to trigger something in her memory of her vision.
[Evan McCollach] He watched the surroundings with some interest, the kids meant little to him at this moment, nothing but children at play. But the church was something esle entirely, he was picturing a small town church, with a little steeple and large iron bell that tolled for all the town to know what time it was. One of those classic middle-american ones, but this was nothing like that. He just looked up at the neon Jesus with the animated blood and he just thinks to himself. Tasteful
He looked around the buildings. Just eyeing them for now, this was the only place that was not tainted in the Hills, where in the church would they find something tainted then?
[Snowsblood] Jakob steps out of the car – it doesn’t matter which one, whose car, he’d have to hitch a ride here regardless – and looks at the church. For a moment he stops where he is, looking at the playground, the parking lot, the kids shooting baskets, and doesn’t move. There’s a deep frown on his brow, his face still healing from the Raven’s price. He steps out, he stops, he stares, and then he turns his attention on Silence.
Ironic, that most of the time Silence talks more than the Galliard does. Probably only because he has to. He’s the Fearless Leader, ain’t he? Listening, listening. To Silence, to Imogen, to Evan. He keeps his attention off of the kids over at the playground shooting baskets, but the hard frown remains, the sense of unease that has settled on his shoulders.
[Snowsblood] After a few minutes, a weird quirk of a smile tugs at the corner of Jakob’s mouth. “Heh,” he says, to – ala the Kinfolk – no one in particular. “Raven, Frog…and Snake. Tree. Church.” He shakes his head a little and looks over his shoulder at the rest of them, as if to see if they get it.
[Silence] “What’s tha story ’bout?”
While he speaks, he heads up the wide steps — some pale, grainy stone — to the glass-and-metal facade of the Tabernacle of the Divine Savior. The ubiquitous dateboard here isn’t some cheap, old, backlit, moveable-typed bulletin board of the sort found in front of older high schools across the nation. It’s a two-sided, full-color sign, blazingly bright in the night, scrolling dates of upcoming events and charity drives between biblical quotes shouted in neon. In the changing lights, the Modi looks grotesque, out of place, savage.
[Neon Jesus] The church is massive; the parking lot larger still, a great hot black apron spread around the cluster buildings. From their perspective – near the edge of the parking lot, climbing the steps to the church, bathed in the lurid glow from the bleeding neon Jesus – the site looks more like a cult compound than a church of any sort. They have a vague sense of scale; of the woods behind the small school, the administration building, or the storage garage (one can only imagine the sort of holiday display such a congregation is wont to put on at Christmas). The parking lot wraps around; as Silence, perhaps, remembers, woods hem the property in on most sides.
Ruhiger finds nothing like her vision here. The building is modern, constructed within the last twenty years, in sprawlingly cheap fashion. The gilded layers have a later date of origin; the facade – all that brick and mortar, those massive windows open at the level of a second floor open to display a series of gleamingly new and thoroughly modern chandaliers, can be only a few years old. There is one change in the display board; the reverend is now listed as “the Reverend Sister Samantha Goodman,” and not her husband, Imogen and Silence would remember – if vaguely – from the previous year.
[Silence] Offhand — “Ruhiger, why don’tcha take Storm’s Eye ‘n have a quick look Umbral. Stay close to tha church. Tell me if tha Umbral reflection looks anythin’ like yer vision.”
[Ruhiger] A nod, then – up of course, briefly showing the ruin that is her lower jaw. She turns to Storm’s Eye, and steps behind a car, their car, something that has them unseen. A study in the reflection, and she and the Thurge sidestep.
[Evan McCollach] He looks over at the magnitude that the church has become. It is enrichened by it congregation and the money that they bring to it. He had been looking around for something, anything that might give away its age, older than he was.
“Well we could take some of this new stuff back, maybe say it is Weaver taint and combined with Wyrm taint.”
And then he turns to Silence when Ruhiger disappears.
“And how is she and Storm’s Eye going to communicate? Does Storm’s eye know sing language?”
[Silence] “She ain’t fuckin’ deaf, Evan.” The flicker of irritation fades into a smirk, “‘n she kin write better’n you.”
[Silence] (erk! retract last post.)
[Evan McCollach] (Wait can AM’s writing board go umbral?)
[Snowsblood] (Is it dedicated? *G*)
[Ruhiger] (I’m sure, that as she’s in her 20’s, she’s found ways to communicate when necessary with those who aren’t totem bound.)
[Snowsblood] (Ooh, ooh, does it show up as a placard tattoo around her neck/chest when she’s in other shapes?)
[Silence] “There ain’t no Wyrm taint in tha church. Tha church is clean, no matter how fucked-up ‘n Hail-Jaysus it looks ta us. But they pro’lly know tha church, ‘n pro’lly tha land near it. ‘n outside them boundaries,” he points at the edge of the parking lot, “the land ain’t clean.”
And, “She ain’t fuckin’ deaf, Evan.” The flicker of irritation fades into a smirk, “‘n she kin write better’n you.”
[Ruhiger]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen waits for the byplay to finish between packmates, her head turning briefly to Ruhiger and the Godi stepping away. As they disappear behind the car to disappear altogether, she turns away.
The kin eyes the neon facade with a downturn of her mouth. “I told yeh about the priest.” It’s not a question – even if they do not remember, or in the case of the newcomers, were not there, she states it as fact. “The one who met Kanekuk and his children – s’how I got th’names I gave.” As she speaks, she follows a similar path as Silence, her hands sliding free from her coat pockets to fall lightly to her sides. The jacket she wears is an unlined jean – a darker hue than the distressed pair that clads her legs and hips. Somewhere between this time and now, Imogen had gone home – changed from her sleek business attire to something considerably more casual – though the blouse is expensive, no matter how subtly so.
“S’pretty clear tha’ he was kinfolk. S’all carefully worded but it’s obvious, when yeh know what to look for.
“The story is about th’last time he saw th’last daughter o’ Kanekuk. Said tha’ she …told him tha’ the they had bound the other half o’ her heart but would never find the other. It goes t’say tha’ she changed before his eyes – became infinitely older – he equated it t’Mother Mary. The priest began t’cry, and the girl – her name translates as Blackwing pointed t’a try tha’ was already ancient at th’time, split by a forgotten lightning strike. The two halves were growin’ on their own, bound only by their roots. She pointed to it and said tha’ they were like the tree. Tha’ the people will return some day, and when they do, the gap will be closed.”
[Imogen Slaughter] “pointed to a try” = “pointed to a tree.”
[Neon Jesus] Ruhiger and Courts the Storm’s Eye crouch awkwardly in the parking lot, wedged between a pair of cars. The gauntlet is thick; it clings to their skin – they push their mouths against it, find it briefly, terribly impossible to breathe. The momentary panic subsides with a giving way that is both great and terrible, and both the Godi and the Modi stumble their first few steps into the umbral – to find themselves surrounded by a phalanx of pure white knights, all lances and halberts and poleaxes, each identical to the last, “face” hidden behind arn armored helmet, breastplates covered in white livery with a red square cross not unlike the swiss flag, or the mark of the knights templar. Beyond the phalanx of knights, another church soars. This one is quintessentially American, drawn from the depths of human imagine: whitewashed, bathed in luminous light, with a spire that soars toward the sky and a simple, elegant architecture familiar to anyone with an American cultural heritage.
The building is different than the one Ruhiger remembers from her vision – the spire and belltower rise higher, the facade is less specific and more luminous. In her memory of the place, there were no stained glass windows, just rough carvings to mark the stations of the cross. Nevertheless, something strikes a cord of familarity, if not memory. The footprint on the grounds, perhaps. The wet darkness of the trees in the background, the shape of the belltower – something.
[Imogen Slaughter] (also! “told him tha’ they had bound one half of her heart, but they would not find the other.” ahem.)
[Silence] (sorry about pause, was asking Q’s!)
“‘n this last time tha priest saw tha daughter — this was after Kanekuk took his people ‘n left?”
[Ruhiger] She studies the White Knights for a moment, before bowing her head in respect. She stands, then, and dark eyes sweep the grounds ahead of them. Still homid, still with hands in her pockets, she studies the structure of the church, the lands, even the footprints.
Something tugs at her, not necessarily memory, but certainly familiar. Pale eyes trace every line, every nook and cranny, before she looks again to the Knights, and makes a gesture – simple, yet effective – asking if they could move closer.
[Evan McCollach] Decker’s comments seemed to roll off of Evan, he had heard far worse from the Get Adren and that was more of debunk of his question. However the said part of the the comment was, that Ruhiger definately wrote much neater than Evan. He had horrible handwriting.
And as Imogen speaks about her story, the one with the priest and the tree, he just listens. He had been listening for something to stick out, something he could work with on this search mission. And for the time he just pondered it over.
[Imogen Slaughter] “It was.”
[Neon Jesus] The Knights do not seem to respond to Ruhiger’s gesture. The phalanx wall around the pair remains unbroken for the first few seconds of their appearance; then the spirits change their attention from the strangers crossing the umbra to the scorched line of battle that seems to mark the furthest point of the Church’s spiritual influence. They say nothing; they do not appear to notice the gesture; certainly, they do not respond.
[Silence] “Then one half’a tha heart was pro’lly tha Caern,” Decker says. “Bound by the Fianna. Tha Hive, now. The other’s gotta be the moon-water-woman.” He turns away from the glossy facade of the church, toward the woods around the side and the back. “Let’s go find this tree split by lightnin’. If Blackwing’s our Raven friend, she’ll know it.”
[Ruhiger] Alright then. They don’t stop her, but they don’t move. So she moves. Over the totemphone. Surrounded by White Knights. They watch a battle at what looks to be the furthest point of the churches influence. It is different, this side and definitely feels familiar. I cannot match it perfectly to memory of the vision, but it is familiar.
And so she moves, a step, two, hoping the wall will break enough to allow them to pass.
[Snowsblood] Jakob is still doing what he said he’d do from the start: paying attention. Some of his more random questions he keeps to himself, the odd thoughts and connections that don’t make sense yet. He doesn’t speak them aloud; maybe in time they’ll fall into place. For the time being, he keeps his eyes open. When he has something to say, something to offer…he will.
He crosses his arms over his chest and nods to Silence, after a glance at Imogen.
[Ruhiger] Alright then. They don’t stop her. Over the totemphone. Surrounded by White Knights. They have moved to patrol at what looks to be the furthest point of the churches influence. It is different, this side and definitely feels familiar. I cannot match it perfectly to memory of the vision, but it is familiar.
And so she moves, a step, two, and then with confidence that they have been cleared to continue.
(repost)
[Evan McCollach] He just listen to Imogen response and then the connection that is ringing across the link that is shared through Eagle. He furrowed his brow a little as the mention of White knights. But at the very least this was the place that was most likely in AnneMarie’s vision.
“So we are here to look for a tree that seems to be split by lightening?”
[Imogen Slaughter] “Earlier in th’journal, the priest mentions that Kanekuk’s – tha’ his group is the perfect family. The father at the head, and . . . ” she repeats this verbatim, “‘the balance o’ twin hearts in body. Son and daughter. Three sets. She may ha’ meant her brother.”
Let’s go find this tree, he says, and Imogen, faintly, smirks. “Let’s.”
She answers Evan’s question, as she turns toward the woods. “The tree was split hundreds of years ago, and survived. S’probably better t’look fer an old tree tha’s been split, but is still joined at the roots.”
[Snowsblood] With a little shake of his head, Jakob starts walking in the direction of the woods, his face contorted with thought. He puzzles things out visibly, works on them as he walks, half-distracted.
[Neon Jesus] The small group all stand on the steps of the church, bathed on neon, lit from within by the massive chandeliers. Banks of french doors march past. On Sunday, one can imagine the mass of people the building might contain. Today, however – the huge, luxuriously appointed lobby is largely empty. A bored-looking teenager leans forward at what appears to be a coffee cart, complete with a gleaming espresso machine and a price list. The sound system reverberates within the building, a chorus of engaged, engaging voice not-quite-audible from their position except as a tidal swell. Traffic on the main road, wending back toward the corrupt little town, and the reverberation of a basketball against the har-true court surface, the voices of the kids, shouting back and forth.
Then: back down the steps, they follow the sidewalk along the wide front facade of the main building. The shadows are numerous, shed in ever direction by the lights that illuminate the parking lot, reinforced by the harsh white lights over the basketball court. The main building ends; the sidewalk splits – meadering off toward the other buildings, or cutting between them, past the basketball court and the playground, the stylized camels, the slide that has been made to look – quite vaguely, perhaps blasphemously – like the temple mount, and so on. The woods ahead are quiet, except for the subtle mating song of crickets secreted in the grasses.
[Silence] Unless stopped, Decker heads across the parking lot, past the playground, through the sand pits and beyond the slides and swings — over the low stuccoed fence that surrounds the expanse, into the half-wild woods. The crickets fall silent as he crunches into the undergrowth.
“Yer journal say anythin’ bout where tha priest was talkin’ ta the daughter’a Kanekuk?”
[Ruhiger] As it becomes clear they will not be stopped again, AnneMarie lengthens her stride into a more comfortable, faster stroll. The Godi, she is certain can keep up or stop her if needed.
Nearer to the church as she continues to search for visual clues to solidify this as the church of old. She breaks away from a direct path to the building to skirt around the side. The vision was in the back of the church, and thus that is where she seeks information and something to tip them off as to what they are looking for.
[Neon Jesus] The kids turn; the game stops as the strangers march by. They turn and their games fall silent, except for a few whispers, a few elbows thrown, the knot of pre-and-early teenagers remains knotted tight. None of them approach the furious, too-bright strangers. It is not until the quartet are well away from the basketball court that the game resumes. When it does, it is a faster game, harder – more fouls are thrown, more disputes break up, aggression dispersed into the familiar confines of a safe and wholly human game.
Silence jumps the low fence and is hit by the set of honeysuckle. It grows while here, and has already devoured the far side of the low wall. There are few paths into the shallow woods, no one much goes exploring, and dark rumors of “things in the night” are as much part of the community as the church, as the destroyed high school. The crickets fall silet, but the bullfrogs in the distance do not, searching for mates in the night, watered by a shallow stream.
[Evan McCollach] Evan follows in the wake of Decker, he was a massive fount of Rage and it permeated from him. If the crickets didn’t stop for him, they would not stop for anyone. And he just seemed to stay on the heels of his Alpha, his eyes constantly looking around, just examining.
He did not know exactly how they were going to pick out a tree that old, split by a lighting bolt, in the middle of the woods. That was to say if the tree was still even standing.
[Imogen Slaughter] She inhales her breath, thinking back.
“It mentions tha’ they always met while he was drawin’ water from a well – and tha’ the well was drawn near a stream – near a bend in the stream, tha’ is. Tha’ they walked near the church.”
She makes less sound, perhaps than Silence does – or maybe it is simply her step is lighter, her feet smaller and therefore less likely to step on as much crackling, or crunching or snapping fauna as he is. It’s not quite to say that she’s quiet. She is not bred for wilderness; but she may be quieter than he is. It is more effort for her to get over the fence – slighter frame, less strength. A hand for balance, a leg swung up, her foot planted for leverage and then over, into the honey suckle, the smell hitting her like a perfume.
“Th’bullfrogs’ll be where th’water is.” In after thought, undirected, “I should ha’ brought a flashlight.”
[Neon Jesus] Ruhiger circles the church; it is dark, and in the spare light of the waxing moon, the woods form a menacing crescent around the churchgrounds. There is a small skirmish in the distance, between the knights and some manylegged insectile humanoid, all joint spaces and carapice and many faceted black eyes; but in the immediate stage, there is just the church. Up close, it is far larger than the church from her vision. It is not limited by human physics, and the walls seem to have a light of their own. The subtle, manycolored song of a spiritual chorus reverberates as she closes the distance, and the stained glass windows line ephemeral building’s northern face.
[Silence] See anythin’ that looks like a well on the otherside, Ruhiger?
Meanwhile, realmside, Decker stops perhaps ten feet from the short wall, holding a hand up for silence as he listens to the croaking of bullfrogs in the dark. Once he has a grasp of which direction the sounds emanated from, he follows it into the woods. He turns back only once to see if the kinwoman (or the two garou, for that matter) were keeping up.
[Ruhiger] A glance toward the battle, the brief skirmish, and there is an ache inside that begs she run and join. This slogging is for Godi’s and Rotagers… she wishes nothing more then to sink her claws into something and release the pent up aggression of all this… but instead, studies the church. And then…
A well? I am at the back of the church. Have you more an idea what we are looking for then… She cannot hear Imogen, after all. She crouches briefly, and for Storm’s Eye, draws a quick word in the umbral dust. – see a well? – it says. And she stands and takes the lead, to look for it.
Searching… The current reply.
[Silence] A well near a bend in tha stream.
[Ruhiger] There’s a stream? bemused. But she moves on, away from the church in a direct line toward those woods, in search of a well, and a stream.
[Evan McCollach] He had been listening to both Imogen and the conversation between the bounded packmates. His legs carrying him as fast as they could along the same path as Decker. In the darkness he knew his eyes were not much help, but he still could heard Decker’s movements, the large ahroun was not at this point moving like a cat and he could trust his senses most of the time to get him through. And as he walked in stride, as best he could, with Decker, he listened for any sounds of a stream, water over rocks, the splash of a branch falling from overhead, anything.
[Silence] Don’t go inta the woods. If you cain’t see it, don’t bother. Come back realmside.
Decker was betting that the woods are ‘thinner’ in the Umbral, if you will. Transparent. Translucent. Whichever. However, if the spiritual growth of the trees — or perhaps, what was feeding on them in the darkness outside the church — was thick enough to obscure the view there, it was better for them to search realmside.
[Imogen Slaughter] perception
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 7, 9, 9, 10 Re-rolls: 1
[Snowsblood] Jakob kept to the rear, even behind Imogen. So there was Silence, going over the wall, and Evan on his heels, and the Alpha’s mate following. Then Jakob, over the fence, into the honeysuckle. He breathes it in, keeps a few feet behind Imogen. He’s not yet sure of her tolerances, but he maintains a spot where he can see all of them.
A pause, when Silence stops, and then they continue moving.
[Silence]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Evan McCollach] (Perception roll)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Snowsblood] (Perception + Survival)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 Re-rolls: 1
[Neon Jesus] Ruhiger marches toward the line of trees; they are dark and darker, twisted, moreso than those north of this place, east of Volo Bog. The knights do not brave the woods, and as the Modi and Godi approach, surefooted, the latter identifies the mournful call of a whippoorwill.
—
The bullfrogs provide an easy point of triangulation. Perhaps their mating drive is strong than even the influence of Silence’s uncountable rage; in any case, it is an easy few minutes brisk walk through the woods, following first the sound of the bullfrogs, then the subtle play of water against the ear. Halfway there – one of them, Evan, most likely, given the surefooted nature of the company, stumbles over something that proves to be a wall much older than the stucco wall over which Silence vaulted. The stones are lichen covered and dry stacked, now so tumbledown and buried in leaf mast and pine needles that the wall seems to have become park of the landscape, a small natural ridge that marks some sort of dividing line. The darkness is not complete, but after life in the city – with its constant illumination – it is astonishing, how velvet the night can be, in this humid darkness, this green velvet life.
Ahead is a knotted riot of growth – vines and trash trees, the odd, stately willow – all the plants one associates with a stream. Silence misses this entirely; instead of the stream, he sees the gleam of the moon on the filtered planes of hard ridges of metal pipe, sitting idle in a distant field, mistakes them for the reflective surface of moving water.
Snowsblood and Imogen, however, both stop at the same point in the trek, just over the drystacked wall, where the woods open in an odd clearing. What the others dismiss as a tumbledown tree trunk in the distance – both pick out, alert in the rich darkness, and from a certain distance – as a ring of similarly dry-stacked stones. The rest of the apparatus has long since fallen to ruin and rotted away. Alert to the well; confining their search to the immediate area around it, the pair soon discover the split tree, by its massive roots, knobbling through the soil, by the old, blackened scars at the point of the split, no more. Much as the 19th century priest claimed in his diary, above-ground, it seems to be two wholly separate trees. Only the settlement of the soil beneath the roots has started to reveal the jointure.
[Ruhiger] There is a sound of a Whippoorwill, and AnneMarie stops and touches Storm’s Eye’s arm to stop her as well. The woods are darker and twisted, and even the Knights do not go in. She shakes her head at Storm’s Eye, and then sidesteps once more with the Godi.
Too twisted and dark to see anything. Coming over.
[Silence] Silence sees the glimmer of water –
And it’s fortuitous that he’s not the type to shout Eureka! and go running off. But he does, certainly and abruptly, change trajectory, fording saplings and debris and plantlife to go trudging off toward the faraway liquid gleam. And without a word to the others, at that.
[Snowsblood] Jakob gives a sharp whistle as soon as he sees the ring of stones. He doesn’t say anything, just that single shrill note that peaks and then falls silent. By the time it does, he’s moving towards the oddly shadowed shapes, looking around it. And there is the well. And the tree, and that is when he looks up to see if anyone else has noticed what he’s noticed, or answered his whistle.
[Evan McCollach] Evan was about to follow in suit with his Alpha went he trips over something that seemed to be in the middle of no where, and he just looks at it for a second. In a moment he was about to kick what he first thinks is a giant rock and then looks it over once more. It was not a rock, but something… constructed. He looked it over and then around, he couldn’t be that far off from the well, if this old piece of building was here.
[Imogen Slaughter] So, the order is thus: Silence, Sterling Silver, Imogen Slaughter, Snows Blood.
The Skald was not sure of the kin’s abilities – and it is not precisely easy to tell in a short trek. She does not stumble, however – and while she may not know the area she seems to have the sense to put her foot down before she sets her weight on it.
Decker shifts his trajectory, suddenly and so surely that perhaps Evan follows, even as Snowsblood whistles. The kinwoman has seen what the younger Fenrir has, however; a fact he can see when he glances up, and Imogen ducks beneath a tree branch, her hand on the trunk for balance as she crosses toward the well. With Jakob’s whistle as a signal, she conserves her voice, as she narrows her eyes in the inky darkness .
Used as a starting point, it is easy enough for both to find the tree. Relatively speaking. If, by then, neither Evan nor Silence have joined them, she does deign to speak, her hand leaving the scarred wood on one side of the cleft, “Over ‘ere.”
[Ruhiger] Realside once again, she can hear the whistle, hear the voice of Imogen, and the Modi and Godi head their direction to join them at the well and tree.
[Snowsblood] He lowers himself into a crouch beside the tree that has become trees, his hand flat against one of the trunks. His eyes peer through the dark for Decker and Evan. Over ‘ere, says the redhead, and he looks back down at the well for a moment. The moment passes, he stands, and follows his hand up the trunk, looking at the two arms of what was once a single entity.
“There, through the broken branches, go – the ravens of unresting thought. Flying, crying, to and fro, cruel claw and hungry throat,” he mutters, to himself, to the tree. Out of nowhere.
[Silence] Imogen doesn’t stumble. And Decker doesn’t seem concerned that she might. It’s negligence, or it’s ancient history — once upon a time, he dragged her ass all the way out into the middle of the pine barrens to see a placid pool. I’d put a caern here, if I could, he’d said, or something like it.
In the end, he hadn’t put a caern there. But that, too, is ancient history.
Decker’s heading with utter confidence toward the glint in the dark when Snowsblood whistles, and Imogen calls. He pauses — turning, frowning. “Ya sure?” he says, with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “Thought I saw…” he lets it hang unfinished, stepping over a fallen log to come back near the others.
It soon becomes clear enough that this, indeed, was the tree. The Modi stands in its shadow, looking up at its forked, twinned halves, putting a hand against its bark. A sudden sense of history sweeps over him. A hundred years ago, some woman, some woman-turned-spirit perhaps, had stood not far from here and pointed at this very tree. It must’ve been young then, hardly more than a sapling; and tough, to have survived such an injury.
“Alright. Let’s git some bark. A seed ‘r some fruit if we kin find it. ‘n anythin’ else in the area that looks old enough ta have a mem’ry. Tha Hive rose, what,” a glance at Imogen, “in the ’70s? So it don’t hafta be much older’n that.
“‘n don’t,” he adds, “harm tha fuckin’ tree.”
[Evan McCollach] Evan seems to look over the structure a little bit more, it was definately old, probably was the old church at one point. And then there comes that whistle and the call from Imogen and he stops his examining of the anicent wall for a moment. He had been moving to the gathering around the tree and the well.
[Imogen Slaughter] “Earlier ‘n that,” she says, absently as she turns her head toward the tree, regarding it reflectively, “Hollingbeck said he thought tha’ it happened around the beginnin’ o’ the last century.”
Some of this must seem incredibly complex. A story that only half – no, not even a quarter has been shared.
Her brow furrows vaguely as she steps back from the tree, tilting her head, “what about th’well? ‘r the wall tha’ Evan found. A piece o’ that, maybe. S’old enough.”
[Snowsblood] One trunk of the tree has a Fenrir Skald’s hand on it. The other trunk of the same tree has the hand of a Fenrir Modi’s hand on it. They are hardly as twinned as the tree is, and they do not come from the same root, as it does. They merely stand quite similarly at its sides, postures mirrored. A sense of history washes over Silence when he lays his hand on it; a sense of something similar is what made Snowsblood lay his hand on it in the first place.
Don’t harm tha fuckin’ tree.
“What about the well?” he asks, nodding a head towards the circle of old stones. “Looks like it’s been here since before the seventies. ” He says this without investment, without conviction: it’s nothing more than a thought, an idea. So much of what comes out of his mouth seems half-formed, like this is, indefinite (as he is) around the edges. So much of what he says could, later, seem like it came from your own mind, a whisper at the back of your thoughts. The way Jakob tends to speak, it would be easy enough to forget that someone other than yourself came up with itit.
[Snowsblood] Imogen speaks, about the same time he does, almost the same words – at least, the first four. One voice echoing another. He blinks, and looks back at Silence. His hand is still on the tree; it has stayed there since he walked over.
[Silence] Silence makes some low sound, almost a laugh, as both Imogen and Snowsblood not only find the same tree but make the same suggestion.
“Evan, git a rock from that well ‘fore ya come back ‘ere.”
For his part, Silence reaches up and snaps a twig off the lowest (oldest) branch of the tree. It’s the simply country wisdom of any boy that’s climbed a tree or hung a tire swing: no matter how tall the tree gets, the lowest branches don’t grow any higher and the tire swing doesn’t move up. He carefully hands the twig to Imogen for safekeeping, and then crouches down to pick a shred of fallen bark off the detritus at the roots.
“Ta prove we was here, in front’a this tree,” he explains, though perhaps he didn’t need to. He straightens up and looks about.
“We need anythin’ else?” — he’s speaking to Snowsblood, and to Imogen.
[Snowsblood] Jakob opens his mouth to speak, then pauses and looks at the Kinswoman, raising his eyebrows. “What am I thinking? Quick, don’t question it, just say it.”
[Evan McCollach] He doesn’t get that far before Silence calls back to him to take a piece of the wall off the last thing standing. It was definately old and would probably have some memories of something, lets hope it actually cared about the Wyrm and what it did. And before he decided to try and kick over a little bit of the wall, he whispered a small apology to the wall before he actually broke a piece off. And with it, he returned to pack, a piece of stone wall with a bit of lichen.
[Imogen Slaughter] Snowsblood and Imogen speak a sentence simultaneously – the kinwoman likewise blinks, her gaze flicking in the Skald’s direction, before turning back to Silence. He retrieves a twig and the kin woman’s hand, pale white and delicate in the sliver of moonlight reaches to take it when he offers it to her.
We need anything else? he asks them both, and Jakob makes a quip. Imogen’s humour does not quite match his, or really, appear to flicker at all – betrayed only by the faintest slip of a smirk that fades faster than smoke does on a windy day.
“S’all I had. Maybe some dirt from inside th’well, or beneath th’roots if yeh want t’be sure. If it will do yeh any good.” The truth is, she’s guessing. It’s a rock. It’s a twig. It’s a goddamned stone from a wall. They are little more than soulless objects that apparently, can be used for things outside of her ken and world of science.
So. Dirt. If it will do them any good.
Her gaze flicks toward the Skald, and the redhaired doctor lifts an eyebrow.
[Ruhiger] AnneMarie and the Godi finally arrive, to hear of tis conversation of dirt and sticks and stones [can break my bones but words… words always desert her] and she falls in with the rest to listen. She has no input to add, but perhaps the Godi does. She will know what can be awoken, what should be, what will work best.
And AnneMarie, hand stuck into the pockets of her slacks, does what she does best. Listens.
[Ruhiger] (adds) Well. Second best.
[Snowsblood] Jakob winces, makes a tsk sound. “Damn. Didn’t last.”
He looks back at Decker and shakes his head. “A twig, a rock.” He isn’t smiling or being snarky and amusing anymore. “A bit from each should be enough, I think.” His eyes go over to Maya when she and AnneMarie show up. He’s no idea what the Godi is really capable of; he simply assumes it will be her job to awaken the spirits, make them talk, find out what they know. “I’ve heard rocks talk slow and that, like trees, they have a sketchy perception of time as we know it. Which…is to be expected.”
With a shrug, he drops his hand from the tree, breaking his momentary connection to the antiquity of its story, and seems prepared to go.
[Silence] Dirt, Imogen suggests. In the darkness — the moon a bare crescent tonight — it’s hard to see if the Modi smirks.
Smirk or not, though, he does reach down to rake his fingers through the dirt. He brings up a handful of dark, rich soil. Land near bogs are often rich and nutritious, full of biodiversity. By all rights, this area should teem with wildlife and wyldlife. But step into the Umbra, and you’re likely to get a nasty surprise.
He looks at Jakob as the Skald speaks up about the habits of rocks and trees. Not being particularly spiritual himself, Decker finds himself somewhat amused. He loosens his fingers and lets the dirt slip through them, pattering down in moist clods.
“Ain’t got a bag ‘r nothin’ anyhow.” Except for the baggie where he stored his weed, but a handful of dust for a baggie of weed isn’t exactly a good trade in his book. He dusts his hand off on his ass, “C’mon. Let’s git outta here. We’ll head back to tha Bog after Storm’s Eye gits a chance ta ‘waken these.”
The trek back to the car seems short, but the car ride down — all those long miles packed five to a Barracuda, and the kinwoman in her own car — seems interminable.