Chapter Text
Lottie was dreaming again.
And dreams were supposed to be locked doors.
She had always wandered hallways when she slept. For years, she'd walked the same beaten carpet, fingers grazing over cracked plaster, snagging on splinters, and ghosting over knobs that wouldn't turn.
When she was a kid, she'd try them, slipping into rooms and worlds and blurring until she couldn't remember whether she was awake or dreaming.
Sometimes it had been good. She would climb trees and nestle into branches, swinging her legs and chattering with new friends.
Sometimes it had been bad. She would run with howls and cackles at her back, screaming herself awake so loudly that her white aunt took her to the first smiling doctor.
According to Marissa Matthews, it was the fire. The fire had done it. The fire that melted those Scorsese tapes, killed Lottie's father, and brought a Red Bank estate to ash. The fire and a dead maid and Lottie's mother's greenstone wrongly tucked in a box for "when you get older."
The fire had done it, and Lottie was broken.
She needed to be fixed.
Since then, the doors were off limits. The psychiatrist hadn't told Lottie so, but the Atarax rusted the knobs, the Trazodone started locking them, and the Risperdal kissed her forehead and whispered, "Stay out."
But her fingers never stopped ghosting. Out of fear, maybe. Or hope. The distinction was complicated, you know. It always was.
And with that part of her—deep, heavy, old—carefully and meticulously thwarted, Lottie hadn't expected the sudden tilt and twist now. She hadn't been prepared for the way her shoulder caught and her fingers tightened as if the brass in her palm was a lifeline.
Not locked. The thought was delirious. She was twenty-eight, and she was old enough to know bad things happened when doors opened... Only two relapses over the last decade: a spiral that ruined senior prom, then another after the GRE while she was waiting on acceptance letters.
Taissa never held it against her. Not the breakdowns. Not when Zara Turner pulled her daughter aside, clapped her softly on the cheek, and told Tai, "You're going to be a good friend to that girl."
And Lottie was grateful for Tai, even if Zara had been the one to buy the bobbing peonies she'd shown up with when she gripped the railing of Lottie's bedside and gave a tearful order: "You're going to get better."
Fix it, fix it, fix it.
The knob wasn't broken.
A trill in her chest, Lottie stepped through. It wasn't a decision, really. It never had been.
Inside, the swell of body heat and strobing lights nearly brought her to her knees. Billows of fog, sparkling with glitter, blanketed everything, and the bass-heavy thrum of some darkwave band caught in Lottie's throat.
She peered through the crowd—goths with heavy makeup and clunky jewelry and grinding hips—and tried to understand.
"It's you." The voice was so suddenly at Lottie's side that she flinched, and a laugh sliced the air.
"Jumpy, huh? What are you on?"
Uncoiling her shoulders, Lottie turned to face a girl. Smoky liner glinting in the haze, the stranger fit the scene perfectly. Her hair was bleach-blonde, tousled into a charming disarray, and she wore a beaten leather jacket over a crisp Peter Pan collar. Despite herself, Lottie's eyes dropped to her legs and the fishnets crawling up pale thighs.
"It's me?" she echoed, dragging her gaze back to center.
"Fuck, you don't remember me?" There was a wolfish twist to the girl's mouth as she eyed Lottie. Over the pulse of the band in the distance, Lottie noticed that her pupils were blown and the tap of her foot wasn't matching the beat.
High as a fucking kite.
It was always a learning curve—well, it always had been—figuring out how to run with dreams. Who were they? And what did they want, or need?
"I don't think we've met," Lottie tried. Her lips quirked, amusement breaking through. "What are you on?"
At this, the girl snickered. She brought her hand into the air, black nails chipped, and rippled it between them. "Lucy… in the sky… with diamonds…"
Disarmed, Lottie laughed. "Okay, Strawberry Fields. Can you tell me where we are?"
"Well, now I have to know what you took."
"I'll tell you if you answer me."
"Bitch, this is Limelight. Batcave. Come on."
"Is Limelight a venue?" Lottie asked. Her brows pulled together, and she sighed when a sweaty guy reeking of clove and poppers pushed past them before disappearing into the crowd. "I was never into concerts."
"How the flying fuck did you stumble into Limelight then?" Despite her crass language, the stranger looked delighted. "You know, could have clocked it. You're dressed like the Babysitter's Club." Suddenly, she lurched forward and gripped Lottie's cardigan, jolting her into the realization that her work clothes had followed her into the dream.
"What? You're not into Stacey?" Lottie joked, surprising herself. She'd never flirted with a dream before. But this one felt so benign. Still, somewhere in the back of her mind, a weariness was seeping through: Be careful.
"Stacey? And here, I was sniping you as Mary Anne…" chuckled the stranger, sounding far away as she fiddled with Lottie's sleeve. There was a pause where they both grinned. Then, "What did you take?" she asked again, and the edge to her voice made Lottie frown.
"Risperdal, Cogentin, Lexapro, and Trazodone for sleep." Lottie shrugged, a little melancholy. "Vitamin D, B-complex, folic acid. Omega-3 when I remember."
The stranger squinted. She looked like she was having a hard time concentrating. "Is that grippy sock shit?" she finally asked, and the question was so entirely tactless that Lottie burst out laughing.
"Maybe you are good at reading me."
"Well, I'm getting to know you," the girl replied. She released Lottie's sleeve and peered up. Her brow had furrowed. "We have met, you know. There was the bar. And the park. Fuck, how haven't I asked your name?"
At this, Lottie's throat tightened. She had never shared her name with a dream before. Intuitively, she knew names had power. Lottie was her anchor to the real world. Dreams used to follow her there, slipping past doors and flickering in shadows and fluttering their fingers in the mirror.
But they didn't stick anymore—not since she was a kid. Now, she fessed up when doors opened. It was the right thing to do, letting those needles prick her skin and nodding tiredly as the doctors titrated just so until everything locked.
All the same, it had been different when dreams rode her coattails. They didn't want to know Lottie; they didn't ask for her name. They just wanted a moment in the sun: a chance out.
But this dream's eyes were so earnest. Like she was trying to dig her nails in.
"What's your name?" Lottie avoided, certain she wouldn't get an answer. She never did.
"Natalie," the dream whispered.
And suddenly, everything—the pulsing music, the sliding bodies, the flashing lights—flicked out like a match. And it was nothing. Pure nothing. Black space and void. Except for Natalie. Natalie who stood in front of her with ruffled hair, heavy eyeshadow, and Limelight glitter on her cheeks.
"But I go by Nat. You're going to remember, right? You'll remember this time?"
The void around them seemed to bend inward, and Lottie's heart stuttered. Her chest felt so heavy, like the air was being pulled from her lungs. "This time?" she managed, a chill crawling up her spine.
"It's not a dream."
Get out. It was the Risperdal, caressing Lottie's mind and tugging her by the collar. Get out, get out, get out.
"Of course, it is," she said weakly. "You've only ever been dreams."
"My name is Nat, and this is Limelight." The girl gave a small smile. "Batcave. It's 1996. Late January, I think."
Lottie was shaking her head. "You're trying to trick me."
But Nat kept going. "It hasn't burned yet. No one's died yet."
"Burned?" gasped Lottie at the same time Nat started to flicker, pixels slicing through her figure like a dropped frame.
Her voice warbled with static. "Nat. Nat. My name is Nat. You can't—" Another skip. A bad splice, Lottie's brain offered. She spotted a scan line cutting through Nat's cheek. "You can't—please, you can't—" Nat was grabbing for Lottie now, but her hands were nothing. They slipped through. They went salt and pepper—fuzzed static. She sucked in a breath, her whole body flickering and stuttering. "Please don't forget my name."
And then she was gone.
//
December 1986. The witching hour.
7 miles north of Flight 2525 crash site.
You have never seen so much blood.
It's everywhere. Spilled across the floorboards, smeared into the walls, splattered across the fogged window. And everybody—absolutely everybody—is dead.
Except you.
Except you, on your knees, drowning in your soaked hoodie as you stare at the bodies strewn in a circle. It had taken the one It wanted, and It had killed the rest. Sliced them beyond recognition.
But It hadn't killed you. You sob, uselessly and pathetically.
Maybe It should have.
No one should ever have to see this much blood.
"Later," It had whispered in your best friend's voice, those long nails jutting through her chest like a marionette's wires. It cloaked her sobbing, gagging body under white robes, and she whimpered from beneath: "When you've become something new and strange and horrible."
Then, the lantern shattered and the oil kissed the floor, and the fire started eating the cabin.
It disappeared. You ran, choking on smoke and life.
You wouldn't be angry for a while. That's never how these stories start. They spiral, you know. They cascade and unfold. It's never pure bloodlust, not at the beginning.
Usually, it starts with love.
But then the memories bloom, and they sear into your muscles. The base of your throat. That wretched hole in your chest where your friend claws through.
Where she should be.
And you learn to hate. You learn to hate the rumors. You learn to hate the nightmares. Sometimes you even hate her. Your friend with sad eyes and no voice, ever ghosting at your shoulder.
But you were given instructions. And that's more than most people who've lost.
Become something new. Something strange. Something horrible.
You'll do it. Not for It. Never for It. Maybe for her.
You'll do it to kill a god. Because what else is left?
//
February 1st, 1996. Late afternoon.
The office of Matthews, Turner, Reyes & Martin, LLP.
A subtle slice of Lower Manhattan, NYC.
Coffee burned acid in Emilia's stomach as she played with the phone cord and waited for Olivia to put her mother on the line.
Shuffling… Crackling… "Hana, it's your daughter… No, no. It's—er, it's the one in New York… Yes! Erana. That's right, that's right…"
Time dragged while the nurse coaxed the phone into Hana's trembling fingers, and Emilia did math. This call would cost anywhere between $2-$5 per minute long-distance to Hokitika. She guessed the bill was already $10.
It didn't matter, of course, but even so, she calculated. Because really, that part of you—the one that learned to bundle up against the winter and bike to the community pantry—never died. It hadn't for Emilia, nevermind how accustomed to Malcolm's money she'd grown over the past ten years.
"My love." Hana's rasping voice tickled Emilia's ear, and she melted into the relief of her mother. Nine thousand miles away and bedbound, Hana still managed to fill Emilia's office, tucking into gaps in the bookshelf and curling around the percolator bubbling in the corner.
Warm.
"Mum," sighed Emilia. She untangled antsy fingers from the phone cord and settled the receiver into the crook of her shoulder. "How are you?"
"Is that why you called?" A chuckle crackled across the line.
Emilia frowned. "Of course it is. Of course I want to know how you are."
"It made sense when you first left, Erana. No money, sad girl, new city, no calls." Hana's words were almost musical in their cadence: a downward spiral. Emilia could picture her waving her hand in a circle to emphasize. "But now you've married a big wallet man, and I'm beginning to forget the sound of my daughter's voice. The last time… When was it… The end of last year—?"
"Do you want to hear about Lottie?" Emilia diverted. "She just turned eight."
"Lottie?" Hana suddenly sounded uncertain across the line, and Emilia's heart clutched.
"Lottie, mama… Your granddaughter. Lottie."
"Oh. Oh, yes! Lottie." Despite herself, Emilia's shoulders sagged. "Tell me about her," continued Hana. "Is she… Would she be in school now?"
"Year four," Emilia translated. "She's doing well. Very artistic. Loves movies… Malcolm is always taking her to the cinema. We just started her on soccer—well, football. She's a little hyper."
"That's good, that's good," hummed Hana. "You'll send me pictures? Beautiful hair. Thank goodness she didn't take after your man."
Emilia snorted. Then, a casual, cruel thought floated into her head, and the tears pricked through. Her throat ached. She hoped Lottie had taken after Malcolm in some ways.
There was a quiet across the line while she struggled to find her words. Hana broke it: "My love, why did you call?"
"Mum… I just… I've been feeling so strange."
"What do you mean?"
"I… Well, I guess I've been getting worried. You know, I've been wondering… When did you get sick? When did it start happening for you—? I was already here, and I don't remember, and—"
"The nurse uses te reo to make me more comfortable." Hana's laugh was amused but weary. "Wharanga uwhi iaia… Almost worse than just saying multiple sclerosis. I like 'MS' best, you know. Easiest on my tired tongue."
"When did it start for you?" whispered Emilia.
Hana stopped laughing. "Erana, what's happened?"
"Maybe it's the case," Emilia reasoned. She rubbed the base of her throat with her free hand to soothe the ache. "Maybe I'm not sleeping enough."
"How could you? All the way out in the city in your bachelor pad. A woman should be home with her family." Hana snickered. "Did you like that? Was I a good stereotype? I can be, you know." She lowered her voice. "Sometimes I even tell Olivia the food here is terrible."
At this, Emilia smiled. Her mother had always had a good sense of humor. Sometimes welcome, sometimes grating. But nearly two decades into her diagnosis? It was reassuring.
"I'm in Jersey on the weekends," Emilia replied. "But right now, I need to be here. It's the tenant rights case... Preservation. Do you remember? Like the developers at Arahura?"
"Don't let those rats build on top of people," Hana confirmed. "But maybe you can fight your rats and still see your daughter. Or bring her with you?"
Emilia shook her head. "There's nothing for Lottie to do at the studio. Besides, I'm busy—meetings, depositions, and the neighborhood isn't always…" She glanced at the heavy oak door of her office and shook her head guiltily. "Anyways, Martha keeps her entertained. They're reading The Secret Garden right now."
"Every working woman loves the maid until she gets called mama."
"That isn't why I called."
"No, you called because you're worried you have MS."
Emilia didn't say anything.
"Weakness. Your legs aren't yours. Everything goes black when you stand up. You know I stopped seeing well."
"It's not like that," Emilia said quietly.
"What's it like, my love?"
"There's…" She swallowed, something nervous coiling in her chest. Like if she spoke this aloud, then it would actually be real. "A place. It's called the Visser. Apartment building in the area. Sort of a cult legend. Lots of eccentrics have lived there over the years: artists, musicians… They say even Jim Morrison had a room once. It's the historic landmark we're spotlighting against the Apex demolition."
"Jim Morrison?"
"The Doors," replied Emilia automatically.
Not getting it, Hana chuckled. "You know what your grandmother would have said about that."
"Oh, don't start."
"Maybe it's not what you think, my dear. Maybe it's the doors. Don't you know it's in the blood? Don't you know to shut the door?"
"Mama," said Emilia carefully. It had been a long while since she had thought about her grandmother and her… stories. For some reason though, those tired superstitions weren't welcome right now. "You know it's wrong to speak ill of the dead."
"Who's speaking ill? Never an open door in that house." Over the line, Emilia could feel Hana's smile. "You'd think in her old age she would have memorized karakia but instead it was that French riddle."
"Il veut toujours du sang," said Emilia. "I wish she had just prayed. She's the reason for my nightmares in year two, you know."
"And mine as a child," Hana agreed. Then, there was a pause. "Do you remember the rest?"
Emilia grew quiet. She ran her free hand through her hair. "I think you know it."
A heavy breath over the phone. "It's not there."
"Maybe if you try—"
"Erana, just remind me."
A familiar nausea curling in her stomach, Emilia nodded. "Il voulait du sang. Il veut plus de sang. Il voulait plus de sang."
"I don't even know if it's proper French."
"Because we're barely French," Emilia joked.
"Enough on that side to hurt," Hana said with a snort. Then, maybe guiltily, "Your grandmother was sick." The sentiment hovered between them—fragile and maybe too close—before she forged on: "I assume your building has a front door. Have you tried closing it?"
The Visser. A chill crept up Emilia's back. She had to tell someone. It was MS. Or it wasn't. Or she was going crazy. Or it was both. "Mum…"
"Yes?"
"Sometimes I'm there," Emilia whispered. "And I don't know how I got there. I leave the office, and then… I'm on the front steps."
"To the building?"
"It happened yesterday. I didn't walk—I know I didn't. But I was there."
There was nothing across the line, so Emilia continued. "And there was a girl on the steps. I try to be friendly with the tenants, you know… Introduce myself. Show them I'm on their side."
Hana hummed.
"But she told me to stay away. Had to be in her twenties. Just a kid. She seemed so angry."
"Maybe she thought you were the bad guy. The other lawyer," Hana offered.
"I don't think so," insisted Emilia, urgency in her chest. "It was like it was me. Like she had a problem with me. And not just a problem… Hate maybe. I don't understand."
"Was she a junkie?" Hana asked.
"Mum," Emilia gasped before frowning. "I mean… Possibly."
"I think you need rest, Erana. I think you need to be home. I think you need to sit with your daughter. And then maybe—" Emilia could practically see Hana fluttering her fingers. "—this will all go poof. Problem solved."
"It's not that simple—"
Three sharp raps on the office door before Zara Turner burst inside, hoisting a grease-stained paper bag and trumpeting, "Quitting time, Matthews! I got Yabba's!"
Panicked, Emilia slammed the phone on its receiver with an uncharacteristic, "Fuck."
Lowering the paper bag, Zara blinked. "Shit, did I interrupt something?"
Emilia shook her head and forced a smile. "No… no… I'll call back tomorrow."
But she would forget. And she would forget.
And later, when everything turned ash-sky and frigid air and hot blood, she would mourn.
This shouldn't have been the last time.
//
February 14th, 1996. Late afternoon.
A trailer in Wiskayok, NJ.
Her dad died on Valentine's Day. How fucking poetic.
Well, technically he died the Friday five days before. But Nat's mom only got around to giving her a call on Valentine's Day.
So, that was it then. Today was the day. When everything went to shit, and Nat guzzled the hooch tucked under the sink, swerved her car into the Wiskayok High soccer lot, and finally punched Piper Robinson's helicoptering dad in the face.
Ben had no choice but to fire her to avoid assault charges.
After the field cleared, they squared off.
"You're making these girls practice today? Don't you believe in love?" She was slurring. "Or are you bitter after Paul—"
"Nat, you are fucked," hissed Ben. "Come with me. I'm calling Van for a ride."
"I can drive—"
"Like hell you can," he snapped, lurching forward and snatching the keys from her palm easily.
"I can walk."
And she did.
Off the field and down the street and away from the startled eyes of soccer players lingering by the chain-link fence.
And as she walked, her dad curled around her shoulders and laughed in her ear. A rabbit, twitching and harried, skittered through the roadside brush, and he raised his ghost fingers and kicked back: Bang.
"You gonna shoot it, Natty? Or you gonna be a little bitch like your m—"
"Fuck off," mumbled Nat, dragging chilly palms across her face to scrub back the tears. And he did for a while. Until she managed the two and a half miles to the trailer and vomited at the steps.
Snorting, her dad swung his legs from the roof, wife beater dingy in the afternoon sun. "I always thought I'd go down fighting. Get my shit kicked in by another draft maybe." Scowling, chipped tooth glinting, he rubbed his abdomen. "Killed by the bottle? Fuck that."
Gagging on the acid, Nat wiped her mouth. "You did it to yourself."
"And what are you doing, baby girl?"
But when she looked up, he was gone.
It wasn't the first time he had disappeared. He'd done it when she was eighteen. Fresh out of high school. Gotten a long haul trucking gig and dragged her mom to Illinois to work the Midwest.
After everything—both of them, gone. Just like that.
"You're an adult now. Shithole's yours. Sell it if you want," he'd told her, tossing a bud to the ground and stepping on it. Leaning against the side of the trailer, Nat rubbed an aching temple as her mom chattered nonsense and threw stuff into garbage bags inside. She thought this was maybe the first kind thing her parents had done for her.
Leaving.
Up until then, it had been screaming, slapping—"you're gonna learn some respect"—shoving a rifle into her hands and throwing a finger at the edge of their lot:
"Kill it."
"It's not hurting anything."
"What the hell did I teach you to shoot for? Kill it." His hands were shaking. Like always.
So, there it was: dead possum. She'd always been a good shot—since she was ten and cried over that first turkey.
Now, she was knocking on the door of her thirties: burn in her throat, throb in her head, and the life she'd built for herself crumbling around her.
Happy fucking Valentine's Day.
Nat didn't remember going into the trailer. Didn't remember drifting onto the porch. Time slipped, and her head bobbed. When the fuzz mellowed, she was sitting on the steps and aiming the gun—dust-covered and closet-weary—into the woods.
If he came back to haunt her, she'd shoot.
But Van showed up instead. Her roommate for the last five years pulled into their lot, cracked headlight splintering across Nat's vision and causing her to recoil. As the beaten down sedan crunched gravel, she realized hours had passed, and the temperature had dropped. It was dark, and she couldn't feel her fingers.
The sedan rolled to a halt and Van slid out, red hair glinting in the glow of the Domino's topper she never bothered to take off her car. When she noticed the gun, she steadied her hand on the hood and blinked. "Very Tarantino, Scatorccio, but I'm gonna need you to put that shit down."
Numb hands curled around the stock, Nat squinted at her friend. She said simply, "Dad's dead."
The admission hung between them. Then, Van asked, "How?"
"Cirrhosis," Nat managed, but the word felt like cotton in her mouth.
"Let's get inside. You need to drink some water."
"Okay."
A couple minutes later, Nat was bundled on their pull-out couch trying to rub life back into her fingers while Van set a kettle to boil. The gun was resting, barrel to the ceiling, against the trailer's warped movie shelf as a compromise. Earlier, when Van had tried to take it for the closet, Nat's grip tightened. "No," she whispered pitifully, and that had been that.
Now, it was out of her hands but still in eyesight. In case he came back.
Kettle rattling, Van drifted back into their living space and pushed aside some of her gear—a busted but "totally fixable" camcorder and a stack of labeled VHS tapes. She looked tired when she perched on the armrest and glanced to Nat. "We haven't seen each other much this week."
Tonguing the roof of her mouth, Nat rubbed her eyes. Everything was throbbing and heavy but a slice of clarity broke through. "How was the festival?" she asked.
The film festival in Washington Heights. The one Van had ditched a precious delivery shift to haul into New York for. Her big break—the one she'd been babbling about for weeks.
That had been last night, and Van hadn't come home. Nat figured she'd just been shacking up with an artsy grad student, or whoever attended underground film festivals.
But the question earned a grimace, and guilt swirled in Nat's chest for not asking earlier. She couldn't say she was surprised though. It wasn't like there was a market for Van's schtick: Sundance just wasn't scouting for Jersey trailer kids combing the city to capture "supernatural happenings."
To Nat's knowledge, Van's documentaries had an audience of three people: Kevyn at Wicker Man Video, who sold her tapes on consignment, some anonymous weirdo who bought every edition of No Compass: Urban Hauntings of NYC as soon as they hit the shelf, and Nat herself when ghost-hunting required two hands and flashlight delegation was unavoidable.
All the same, Van didn't deserve to bomb. The ghosts were woo, but her stuff was funny as hell. "Hey," Nat said, ducking her head and meeting her roommate's eyes. "If they can't hang with you, fuck 'em."
Strangely, that prompted another grimace, and Van rubbed her face as the kettle whistled. "Yeah," she mumbled, uncharacteristically subdued, before bouncing off the couch to fix the tea. When she came back, she passed Nat a steaming mug before sighing, "Ben called me at work."
The tea was too hot, but Nat swallowed it anyways. Time had burned off a bit of the booze, but her head was still cloudy. "Lot rent's paid for the week… Fuck, I mean the month. Already—the month. Just… Hang tight and I'll figure it out. Give me a couple days."
"Nat, you could have got arrested. I mean, I just—"
"You think you'd do it better?" The question was quiet. It was simple. Not bitey. It wasn't even cold.
Maybe that made it worse.
Van blinked as her mother drifted between them. A town over—probably passed out on the couch. Circling the drain while Nat's dad was in the pipes.
It wasn't a kind thing to say. But Nat wasn't always kind.
They sat through the moment, and then it was over and Van's shoulders drooped: answer enough.
They would have to move on.
When Van finally spoke, her voice was distant, "The longest I've stayed anywhere besides Jersey was that bender for Sleater-Kinney in Portland."
Despite herself, a chuckle spilled from Nat's chest. She groaned playfully. "Fuck, Van. My dad's dead, and you're talking sexcapades?"
Cutting her eyes to the side, Van grinned. A bin on the floor was bursting with spare gear, and she picked up a blank cassette and started spinning the reels. "Would it be crazy if I said that you getting canned is good timing?"
Nat's brow furrowed. Fucked as she was, the math didn't math. Assistant coaching had been nothing special, but it paid the bills, and the girls were alright. She and Van lived in a shithole with a couple hundred stuffed in a cracked safe under the bed. There was no world where today had been a good thing. "What are you on?" Nat asked.
"We're getting out of here. I didn't know how to tell you, but now it's kind of easy. We can leave."
Something in Van's demeanor was making Nat edgy. It was faraway. It was weird. But her head was roaring, and she couldn't do anything else but play along: "Okay, sure. Where the fuck are we going?"
Van stopped playing with the reels. She turned to face Nat fully. "I got a job. A shoot. Well, sort of. It's at a place called the Visser."
//
February 13th, 1996. 8:30PM.
A shadow on Riverside Dr., Washington Heights, NYC.
The thing about the Hudson was that it didn't roar; it howled.
It was the sort of detail no one thought about unless they knew the tides like Gen did. She'd seen the river at its worst, and she'd seen it at its best. "Best" was subjective, of course. The feds had passed their water laws when she was a kid, but walking the bank always earned a sharp look from her grandmother. Growing up in the Heights, Gen spoke more Spanish than Hindi, but she didn't need to ask her mom to translate when her grandmother shook her head at the river: "Don't you dare touch that water."
One of the most polluted places in America. Couple bodies washed up every year. Home.
The Hudson howled. It wasn't violent or thrashing. It caught the wind, and it whistled.
There was a simmer to the tides that mirrored Gen's dark mood as she shoved out of the Visser and pounded down the steps. The thing about a coven was that it was family. The thing about family was that it wasn't exactly ideal to kill everyone when you disagreed.
So, she had walked away.
And she had walked and she had walked, and she had muttered, "Fuck that bitch from Brown." It didn't help that Melissa was fucking that bitch from Brown, a fact newly acquired that afternoon that wouldn't stop rattling in Gen's brain. It didn't help that Mari thought it was funny as hell: "It's not hurting the blessing. Shit, maybe it's keeping them both on task," she had snickered.
"You don't think it's suspicious?"
At this, Mari's playful demeanor shifted. Her eyes hardened. "She's got the icon."
An iciness filled the apartment, and Gen frowned at her friend lounging on a faux-velvet chaise. In the corner of the space, the ball python began to unwind in its tank. "I know. I just—"
"You're not wussing out on me, are you?" asked Mari.
Gen's hackles raised. "No. It's just weird, okay? Shit goes missing for centuries and some white girl from Brown shows up claiming she found the icon?"
"Mel's white," Mari laughed, and a sort of ease warmed between them when Gen snorted, "Maybe that's the problem."
But the moment passed, and Mari rubbed her temples. "Look, I'm not passing this up. Mel's not passing this up. So you better not fuck this up. I don't care what Shauna wants. I don't care how she got the icon. She has it. We've seen it. So stop being a little bitch."
Gen huffed. "It just feels too good to be true—"
But the argument was over. Because the room went cold and the candles flicked out one by one until the moonlit window was all they had to see by. In the dark, Mari's teeth glinted: "You can be a flight risk if you want. But I'm not going to die."
Because that was how acceptance worked. It crumbled apart the second you glimpsed a chance.
Now, Gen was spiraling. Somehow, her feet had carried her to Broadway, and the press of people was smothering. Frowning, she let her gaze roam the street for an escape route.
It wasn't like she wanted to die. The thought scared her shitless. She didn't know what happened after.
But it also wasn't like she had much evidence for second chances. They were twenty-eight. They had two years left. Before Shauna Shipman crashed into their lives, they had been saving for a trip to Varanasi.
And now Gen wasn't sure if she'd ever go. Because she didn't think the blessing would work. Life was cruel. It had claws. Out of everyone, Mari and Mel should know that.
Head beginning to ache, she more or less drifted through the doorway. Something had tugged her off the street—the foggy heat billowing in the night air or the strange noises inside, whichever. And she stumbled past an excited greeter, followed her directions down the hall, and slipped into a small theater.
A slew of eccentrically dressed people were scattered in worn but plush rows facing a crisp screen, so Gen found a seat and followed suit.
Adrenaline still pumping from the argument with Mari, it took her a few moments to process what was happening. When the blur around her vision faded, she frowned at the screen.
It was some kind of Unsolved Mysteries bullshit. A flashlight beam swung across what looked like a cluttered basement, and voices clamored back and forth, cutting in and out:
"You've got five minutes—I'm serious—"
"This is the thanks I get for scoring you—?"
"Shut the fuck up. Is she recording? Hey, I didn't say you could—"
"Do you guys feel that?"
"The draft?"
"No, something's here—"
"Man, I can't see shit. It's so weird to be here without a crowd. Hey Rich, can you hit the lights?"
"Swear to God, Nat, if you get me caught—"
The screen blurred as ambients lit overhead, and the surroundings of the basement became slightly less murky.
Gen blinked. She leaned forward and squinted. And then she laughed so hard that the skinny alt boy a row ahead turned and hushed her. Waving him off, she slouched back in her chair and grinned, mood significantly lifted.
She'd know Limelight anywhere. Batcave. Rich kids playing in the dark she lived. It was ridiculous. It was hilarious.
But then it wasn't.
Because—"Fuck, do you see that?"
"I don't see anything, Van."
But Gen did. The echo. Limelight was mostly a gimmick, but she wasn't surprised it was there. Deconsecrate a nineteenth century church and turn it into a fucking night club and you're bound to stir up some ghosts.
As to be expected, the audience around Gen didn't react. They just saw the vacant corner of a basement and not the man in a torn flannel with bullet holes.
"It's a shadow," whispered the person holding the camera—frame shaking now—and Gen nodded because that made sense too. Sometimes regular people were sensitive and could feel out echoes, but it was rarely the full image. Blurry around the edges. Maybe even scarier that way.
"We're in a basement. Shadows aren't exactly—"
"Okay, time's up. Y'all gotta dip. If the door guys hear that I let you in, I'm gonna be cooked—"
"Just a minute." The person holding the camera was zooming in now, and the face of the echo filled the screen. Pretty fucking terrible with his hollow cheeks and sad eyes, but Gen knew the audience couldn't see anything.
That is, she had thought so until a soft sob broke from her right, and her shoulders tensed. When she turned, her mouth dropped open.
The lawyer bitch. The one that was always poking around the Visser. There she was, one row down with her hands clasped in her lap as she stared at the screen and tears leaked out.
And now it was definitive: she was Touched. Gen had thought as much. She'd seen her around now and then during the daytime, always babbling to some tenant in the lobby about all the Apex bullshit. As if she could save them. As if people in the Heights didn't know wrecking balls back to front—as if they were too dumb to realize it was time to leave.
Gen hadn't suspected anything until she ran into her again at night. It had happened twice now, the woman drifting around the Visser's front steps with that spell on her shoulders.
The first time Gen had been territorial. "This isn't your block. What's your coven?"
But the lawyer hadn't answered. Instead, she dragged her eyes up the side of the Visser, past window after window all the way to the top until she was staring into the dusk sky. It was weird, and it made Gen frown. Of course, it could have been drugs—rich, given the woman's pleated skirt—but the spell was too coiled.
She was either Touched or cursed. Maybe both.
So, Gen had clapped her hands and made a nearby streetlight spark out. The bang-flash shocked the lawyer out of her daze, and she was blinking in confusion when Gen leaned down the steps: "I don't know why you're here, but you need to fuck off." Then, she shouldered past while the woman stammered.
The second time had just been annoying. Gen was headed to the corner shop for groceries, and there the lawyer was again. Drifting on the front steps. The streetlight was still busted—this was the Heights after all—so Gen flicked her lighter into a hissing plume, and the woman nearly brained herself on the concrete as the stupor broke.
"Bitch, I said stay away," Gen snarled, a strange guilt stewing inside when the woman's face went fearful. But she stomped off anyways. The Visser already had a coven. And they didn't have time—not for themselves, let alone strays.
Seeing the lawyer again now, on top of Shauna Shipman and all those Apex goons sniffing her Visser, Gen reached her breaking point. She was tired. She wanted her home back. She wanted the next two years. She didn't want to share anything.
So, she waved her hand and the projector blew with a bang that plunged the room into confused shouts and total darkness. Feeling her way, Gen slipped from her seat until she was hovering behind the lawyer. She gripped the back of the chair and brought her face to the woman's ear: "This is your last warning. If you bring that curse back into the Visser, we're going to kill you."
Then, she strode out of the theater as someone finally hit the lights and the lawyer whipped around in her chair. But Gen had already cleared the hallway. She shouldered past the door and back onto the streets.
And it felt good. Making someone else scared for once.
//
June 17th, 2016. Early evening.
The Museum of Moving Image, Queens, NYC.
Lottie woke with a start, groaning a little when she felt a trickle of drool on her mouth. "Fuck," she mumbled before letting her head fall back to the desk with a soft thud. She'd nodded off again. And she couldn't keep doing that.
All the same, it looked like she was at the capture desk. And the digitization room was a little more private and a little less bad for this kind of slipup. Maybe.
Feeling guilty, she blinked through the haze and pushed herself to her elbows. But the fog was heavy—too fucking heavy—and she managed the exceptional feat of knocking over Tai's old Columbia mug and hitting play on the tape deck.
At least the coffee blooming across her cardigan was cold.
"Come on, it's already recording. You look better in this shot."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Oh my God, you're kidding me. Don't pretend you weren't here last week."
Voices swirled around the space, and Lottie winced as she scrambled for the napkins Todd kept wadded in the workstation drawer. As she began mopping her mess, her thoughts slowly sharpened: The documentary. The digitization project. Apex.
She probably should turn the deck off. No use reviewing playback without her notepad—or her wits. But her eyes hurt with sleep, and getting her bearings was miserable. So, she sighed and carried on.
"Fine. Whatever. What do you want me to say?"
"Introduce yourself! It's not that hard. Tell our wonderful viewers where we're at."
A long-suffering groan. Then, "My name's Nat. This is Limelight. Batcave—"
Halfway through blotting the spill, Lottie's heart seized, and her gaze swung up. She knew that voice. She'd restored two tapes of the No Compass collection so far—one about McSorley's Ale and one about Washington Square—and there was always a girl in the back of Van Palmer's escapades.
But she had never been introduced before. And she had never been on screen.
But now she was. Bleach-blonde hair. Smoky eyeliner. A worn denim jacket over a Bikini Kill shirt.
But as Lottie leaned forward to look more closely, the deck whined and the playback stuttered: "My name's Nat. This is Limelight. Bat—My name's Nat. This is Lime—Bat—My name—My name—Batcave—Nat—"
"Shit," Lottie breathed, dropping the napkins and going to hit stop. The original video was newly housed, and she couldn't afford to fuck it up.
She had just ejected the tape and was inspecting it for damage when her phone lit up and a call nearly rattled it off the desk. The caller ID read Todd (MoMI) and Lottie felt her stomach drop.
Was her boss calling her about falling asleep? But he wasn't in today. And there weren't cameras in the digitization room, and it was Tuesday evening—wasn't he having dinner with his husband—?
Still holding the tape, Lottie swiped with a free hand and fumbled the call onto speaker. "Yes? Hi."
"Hey, Lottie. I know you're finishing your shift. Hope I'm not interrupting."
"No, you're not interrupting!" And then she swerved. "Well, I mean I am working. On the fire damage one—yeah, No Compass—but you're not, uh, you're not bothering me."
Todd was good-natured. Really, there was nothing to be anxious about. But Lottie was groggy, and her meds made waking up a slog. She hadn't quite found her footing.
"Right, right," Todd muttered, sounding less chipper than usual. "That's actually what I wanted to call about. I wanted to say no hard feelings about it."
Lottie's brow furrowed. "No hard feelings?"
"I mean, you know we adore you. You're one of the most talented conservators I've brought on. But funding's a bitch. I get it. You can't stay part-time forever."
Now, Lottie was sure she was missing something. "Todd, I don't—"
But her boss continued. "And I can take over Lisa's internship. Don't sweat it. I know she's thankful for the recommendation letter you wrote. The Artemis Exhibit? Even I was shocked when she heard back—"
"Todd, wait. Hold it. Uh, stop." Lottie pinched her nose and grimaced. Tone wasn't always her forte. "I'm sorry—I, ah—I just don't… Well, I don't know what you're talking about."
There was a pause across the line. Then, Todd said slowly, "Well, I know it's a bit forward. I guess I'd be a little annoyed if my new boss broke the news before I did." A chuckle. "But trust me, Lottie, it's fine. Apex just called me. I know all about the job offer. I mean, they were so excited with your work."
Apex. Lottie blinked. The… corporate… firm… entity—(thing?)—that had contracted with MoMI for the No Compass collection. She had sent them the first restorations last week.
Frankly, Lottie had no idea what Apex did. They were one of those Fortune 500s with fingers in every pot.
But a job offer? For her? And they had called Todd?
Before Lottie could speak, Todd carried on, "I don't blame you at all. You don't have to tell me, but I know it's a lot of money. Before your time, we had Apex nab one of our other conservators. I mean, Lord, she was looking down the barrel of six figures. Who could blame her?"
Six figures. Lottie squinted.
But she didn't need six figures. And she liked part-time because she could work in her doctor's visits. And well—
Todd didn't know any of that.
Because at work she pretended to be normal.
Putting down the tape, Lottie swiped through her notifications while Todd babbled. There was a sinking feeling in her chest when she saw the voicemails. Ten. Hell, her inbox was nearly full.
And then, as if on cue, a call came through. The caller ID flashed Unknown.
"Todd," Lottie managed to interrupt. "Can I—uh, can I call you back?"
Her boss pivoted gracefully. "Oh, of course. We can talk it through tomorrow." She could almost feel his smile across the line. "I was just excited for you. I know the museum hates it, but if they're bothered, then they need to give us full-time—"
"Right, right. Yeah, I think you're right."
"Okay, okay, don't work too hard—"
"I won't. Well, I mean—"
But the line went out, and Lottie barely had time to accept the incoming call. For some reason, her palms were sweating.
"Hello?"