Member
Mixtape Ghost N
Estylwen
Einherjar 906
Bartimaeus
Atrophy
Snowdrops
FernStone
SilverPaw
shylarah
At the intersection of bad decisions and eventuality
The future was an unforgiving place.
One was more likely to get lost trying to track down the true possible eventuality than actually find the actual answer that they sought. There could be a thousand possibilities that change at a moments notice. A thousand possibilities that Lynn was quickly becoming a master at navigating. This trip to the possible future was one of the most important ones yet. Was it to see if the snake broke free of its prison? No. Was it to figure out who father wolf actually was? Not a chance, Lynn had spent many drunken nights trying to decipher that mess. Was it a anything that was actually important to the coven as a whole? No. It was something much more important. Finding a lunch place that Sloane might actually like.
And it was proving to be difficult.
Lynn had narrowed down the choice to two possible options. One was a new restaurant called The Olde Town Tavern that had just opened up in the arts district. It promised fine food, expensive wines, and a brunch menu that should satisfy anything that Sloane might want. As well, she was consistent enough with her order that Lynn felt confident that she’d be at least cordial to share the meal. Though upon looking up the reviews it seemed this place was an upscale, fancier version of a Cracker Barrel restaurant minus the gift shop. The other was a crappy dive bar simply called The Bar that may, or may not, have had several health code violations recently. Between the two Lynn picked the tavern, and hopped she picked right.
She waited for Sloane at the table, arriving some thirty minutes early to order the appetizers that the future suggested Sloane would like. If Sloane was as punctual as she was in these futures she would arrive just a minute before the food came out, and Lynn would prove that she could read the future well enough. This was important because Lynn needed Sloane’s help deciding which future was accurate with Kari. Lynn looked at her phone and saw that it was almost time. She leaned back in her chair, and took a small sip from her mimosa.
Sloane had been surprised to get a text from Lynn given their less than amicable history. She wouldn’t have even replied under normal circumstances, but then again under normal circumstances Lynn would never have reached out. Sloane was still tentative when she had accepted the invitation to brunch, having spent several minutes pacing around in her apartment as she failed to convince herself that Lynn wasn’t that small of a person to invite her out merely to rub it in Sloane’s face that she had been right about 8th Street attacking them, an argument made all the more easy by recalling what Lynn had said about Jinhai.
Yet in the end she still felt compelled to accept, surprising herself just as she was surprised as she walked in through the door of the Olde Town Tavern. The brunch spot was shockingly quaint, lovingly crafted out of vintage wood and forged iron that gave it a rustic feel despite being a new restaurant. The decor was a little hokey but strangely comforting, with rusted anchors and wooden ship wheels and fishing nets and old rods lining some of the walls as well as one great big fake marlin posted above a lit fireplace. Sloane caught a wave from Lynn out of the corner of her eye and made her way to where the woman was sitting, passing by a handful of couples in quiet conversation, failing to notice that the two of them were about half the age of everybody else in the restaurant.
Sloane slipped into her seat as she gave Lynn a simple, “Good morning.” She reached for the tiny pack of creamer to add it to the cup of black coffee steaming in front of her, stirred it, and took a sip. It was fantastically brewed. She let out a nearly silent hmph and closed her eyes as a sign of her satisfaction, unaware that Lynn had ordered the coffee for her after predicting which would receive the most favorable response, able to live the rest of her life not knowing the catastrophe that would have occurred if it had been a Bloody Mary made with jalapeno infused vodka waiting for her instead of a simple French roast.
“I predict that you didn’t just invite me out to have brunch. ” said Sloane, opening her eyes, looking around for a menu. “So, what’s going on?”
“Good morning Sloane,” Lynn said with a weak smile. While she had pushed herself out of the hole that Friday had put her in, she was still feeling very raw and emotionally vulnerable from the ordeal. If it wasn’t for Ken, Luca, Jasper, and Lila she was liable to be in a much worse spot. “You are correct, I didn’t just invite you out for the company, though all things considered you’re not the worst person I could be having brunch with at this moment,” images of Linqian flashed across her mind, “I need your help Sloane. I have ten possible futures, all equally likely, that I need to decipher.”. Lynn paused as she took a big sip from her mimosa. This was the hard part. Lynn knew she needed to do a few things, not to get Sloane to help but to be better than the false prophet she was to the old coven. Part of that was accountability, and the other was seeking guidance when the future was uncertain.
“I was hoping I could get your help in fixing that.”
“I see,” said Sloane slowly, thinking over the proposition. At first it struck Sloane as odd that out of all people Lynn would choose her. While it would be crazy for Sloane to believe that Lynn couldn’t see a future, Sloane had been historically dismissive of Lynn’s predictions—sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. Perhaps that was precisely why she was the one to have been chosen. Anyone else would just nod along out of politeness while Sloane was the kind of person who’d poke holes in the ideas presented by Lynn.
Plus, there was just something nice about being relied upon.
“Fine, let’s hear them,” said Sloane, pulling a pen out of her coat pocket and grabbing a napkin to use as a piece of paper. “Oh, but we should probably order first before we get too far off in the weeds and…”
A waiter arrived carrying a platter of dishes before Sloane could finish her thought and swiftly dressed the table, departing as quickly as they had arrived after checking if there was anything else the two needed. Sloane glanced at the smorgasbord before her: a platter of seasonal fruits drizzled with a honey, eggs benedicts absolutely dripping with hollandaise sauce, and razor thin slices of smoked salmon on top of a thin piece of toast topped with cream cheese, red onions, and capers. It was the kind of spread that brought tears to the eyes, in part due to how beautiful it looked as well as how strongly fragrant it was. It was only when the server returned to drop off a plate of spanakopita and stuffed mushrooms, some absolute personal favorites, that Sloane folded her arms and gave Lynn a stony, although not necessarily upset, look.
“Very cute,” said Sloane dryly. “But wouldn’t it have just been easier to ask?”
A sly grin crossed Lynn’s face. “It would have been easier to ask, yes,” Lynn responded as she crossed her arms, “but you never believed I could predict the future with any accuracy,” Lynn uncrossed her arms as she pointed towards the various tasty treats assembled before them, “and I had to show you that I’ve gotten better since the coven to get your help.”
“Right…”
Sloane plated herself a piece of spanakopita and sunk her fork into it, taking a small, delicate bite. A sudden spark of light shone in her dark eyes as the flavor exploded in her mouth as she smiled and attempted to cover up her delight by dabbing at her lips with a napkin. It was incredible. She cleared her throat and set the napkin back on her lap.
“Maybe I had been a bit harsh to you in the past,” said Sloane—a massive understatement. There was no polite way to ever call somebody a useless liability, but Sloane definitely had found some of the worst ways to do it back in the day. “I suppose I should thank you for warning us about 8th Street.”
Even if Lynn’s warning had, like many of her predictions before, been issued too late for it to actually be of any use. Sloane managed to keep herself from pointing that out by shoving another piece of flaky pastry into her mouth.
“I was to focused on what I was searching for, I nearly missed the threat right in front of us,” Lynn said with a smirk, “being back at Kari’s house, and hearing what they had to say about her grave I just had to see what the future held for her, you know? And it blinded me to the threat coming our way,” Lynn paused as she sighed, “just like before.”
Lynn took a big sip of her mimosa. A lot of people died because she got lost like that in the future. “Despite that, I was able to get ten possible futures. That’s it. There’s just ten possible futures involving Kari,” Lynn paused as she leaned back, “and it’s been five years since we…since we broke up and I don’t think I can objectively figure this out. I have too much skin in the game, you know? I can tell you what each future is, one by one, and you will tell me what you think of each one. Would you do that for me?”
Sloane nearly choked on a slice of persimmon when Lynn mentioned her breakup with Kari. Sloane had known that at one point Kari had dated a woman named Lynn, as Kari would always pointlessly bring her up whenever they were discussing something that at the time Sloane had thought was important, but she had never made the connection that Kari’s Lynn was the Coven’s Lynn. Or perhaps she had but had cared so little about Kari’s interpersonal problems that she had just deleted the knowledge from her brain, replacing it with things that she’d thought were more important.
Sloane looked down into her coffee, feeling a strange sense of shame in how uninterested she had always been in Kari’s dealings. Suddenly Lynn’s explosion at Linqian was so much more understandable. At the time she hadn’t known that their Kari might still be alive. Sloane frowned. There was something cruel about the hope that Lyss’s foggy information had given Lynn and Kenshiro.
“Go ahead,” said Sloane, clicking her pen, wishing she knew how to say something comforting.
Lynn held up a single finger. “Kari is Father Wolf, and she is seeking revenge on the coven because of a grievance against part, or all, of the coven.”. Lynn let that sink in for a moment. She also grabbed some of the spanakopita and took a bite and her eyes rolled at the taste. Sloane had exquisite taste, and Lynn was glad that the possible future was so right with this dish. “I know right? If it was just a dead end of a possible eventuality I’d chalk it up the randomness of the future but I saw this one many, many times.”
“It is a possibility,” said Sloane, jotting a note. She still had her suspicions that Father Wolf was previously a member or associate of the Coven. “Her spells would allow her to spy on others and find them when they were at their most vulnerable, making up for her small size. Although I couldn't imagine what reason would push her to murder. She was one of the few members of the Coven that could be considered levelheaded, and I don't remember anything bad happening to her that didn't happen to the rest of us.”
“So in this theory,” an unintentional use of the wrong word that was slightly disparaging. She should've said future, “Kari somehow managed to go to an alternative reality and then murdered her double so she could fake her own death? Seems far-fetched.”
“That’s right, she used her spell to locate an artifact that allowed her to pull another version of herself over just to murder herself. She knew we would investigate and did that to slow us down,” Lynn paused as she took another bite of the food. “It is far-fetched, but so are some of the other possibilities.”
“It just feels convoluted, doesn’t it? Kari’s smart enough. She would’ve realized that killing her double would make her look like the prime suspect. Did you ever see any specifics regarding what these grievances that motivated her were?” asked Sloane.
“Sadly nothing concrete. In one it was because we let her best friends die, in another it was because someone took the last donut at a coven meeting, and so on. Infinite variety of reasons, one singular outcome,” Lynn took a sip of her mimosa as she leaned back.
“I would like to think that we're being murdered over more than a bear claw. What else do you got?” said Sloane as she put down her fork and picked back up her pen.
Lynn held up two fingers with her free hand as she put the mimosa back down. “Kari is alive, but she’s hiding out in another universe to save herself from Father Wolf,” Lynn responded with a sigh.
“And in this version, she found this artifact and offered her other self up as a sacrificial pawn?” asked Sloane, looking up from her note at Lynn. “And she didn't warn anyone or offer to take them with her? Not you? Not Ken? You'd know her better than I, but that doesn't seem like something the Kari I knew would do.”
Lynn held up three fingers, agreeing with Sloane with a nod of her head. “Kari knew something evil was coming, and suspected the snake was involved. She went searching for the tree it’s sealed in and found it. The snake then took control of her mind, and took up the disguise of father wolf to free the snake,” Lynn paused as her head twitched slightly at the thought.
Sloane took the opportunity that a bite of smoked salmon allowed her to ponder over this one. It reminded her of something Drake had suggested some time ago, the idea that the Stygian Snake had implanted hooks in all of their minds and were able to tug at them from its vessel and even call upon them like sleeper agents. Except the only thing that connected the Stygian Snake to Father Wolf was that both of them were against the Coven. Regardless, it was really just a variant of the first idea, except in this one Kari wasn’t so much a psychopath as a hapless victim. It also conflicted with the second one, serving as a damning indictment of the unreliability of Lynn’s foresight.
“So we’re too assume that Kari either severed her Lux and has no Emotional Field or the Stygian Snake was somehow able to bypass it while trapped inside of its prison despite not being able to penetrate ours while at its most powerful? Obviously my memory regarding the subject is blank, but if Kari’s goal was to free the Stygian Snake she should just be able to do so by destroying the sycamore tree,” said Sloane.
“Also, hold on for a moment,” said Sloane, leaning forward with her chin propped up on her hand. “How can you have visions of one future where Kari is Father Wolf and another where she is not Father Wolf? This isn’t some quantum Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment. While the future is malleable, the course towards it is still set by the past. Father Wolf already exists. They have murdered over a dozen people. Now I can grasp the concept of alternate realities and parallel universes. Maybe there exists a world where Kari’s Father Wolf, or you’re Father Wolf, or I’m Father Wolf, but when Ripley was the first one killed by someone that we likely know it set in stone for our timeline which person our Father Wolf is. So all futures should just be that Kari is Father Wolf or all futures should be that Kari isn’t Father Wolf. How can they vary so drastically?”
“That’s why I call them false futures,” Lynn said as she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, “and that’s also why this is a curse and not some bloodline magic,” Lynn sighed, “I can see into possible futures, but I can never tell if it is our actual future or some bullshit. At least on first glance. And that’s why I look at so many,” Lynn paused as she leaned forward and slipped into the possible future. This time, she did something she very rarely, if ever, did. She projected the future out and allowed Sloane to see a glimpse of what the immediate future had in store. Whole conversations were had in a blink of an eye, some of them turned violent between the two where Sloane cursed a knife and held it to Lynn’s throat while in others they would hug. In a few of these possible futures the waiter came over and asked for Sloane’s number, and in others they would ask for Lynn’s. Sloane would watch as hundreds of possible futures were explored right at this table. Lynn pulled herself back from the possible future and looked to Sloane.
“You’re right. The truth is set in stone, but the path to the future is not,” Lynn paused as she took in a deep breath, she reached into her bag and grabbed a large piece of paper with a intricate drawing of a tree at the bottom of the page and ten trees upside down on the top. The artwork was incredible, with a realistic but artistic take on a forest and each and every branch was carefully placed for maximum effect and every color was masterfully applied to create a wonderful piece of art. There were various animals and critters that hugged the stump near the lone trunk at the bottom and at the top each of the ten trunks had a small ecosystem of creatures around it. In the middle the branches branched off and interlocked with each other.
“Here,” Lynn pointed to the singular tree trunk at the bottom of the page, next to the initials of Jasper denoting the artist, “this is the present. There is nothing we can do to change the outcome of what has happened and what led to this point,” her hand traced up to the interlocked branches, “this is the immediate future. I can see the results of any action I wish, and either get the truth or a false prediction. I can follow those actions, reactions, and move,” she flipped the page so that the ten upside down trees, “to the far future. In this case, I showed ten possibilities hence the ten trees. Now, any action I take will result in change, one way or the other,” Lynn paused as she traced her finger to the side following the ever growing mess of branches, “and I searched far and wide to see if there was any more variation,” she looked at Sloane, “but no matter how far or wide I looked I always led back,” Lynn traced the branches towards one of the ten trunks at the bottom, “to one of these outcomes.”. Lynn paused as she passed the paper to Sloane.
Sloane’s eyes lingered on the initials marking the illustration for a second longer than they should have before she handed the paper back slowly and deliberately, careful to avoid reaching anywhere near the butterknife that was resting on the table. If Lynn was capable of churning through so many immediate possibilities so quickly then Sloane could barely hazard a guess at how many variants she had gone through—hundreds of thousands, millions, more—that all ultimately led back to her ten ultimate outcomes. Lynn had done her homework, but even then there was a creeping doubt in the back of Sloane’s head. She would’ve said snide comment about how Lynn’s future sight was what others would call imagination, but Lynn had already shown her that conversation. It hadn’t been fruitful. Sloane sighed.
“Thank you for illuminating me,” said Sloane, carefully choosing her words to deviate from the paths laid out before them by Lynn’s projections, following along the unmarked route that became the only way forward the moment Lynn had shown Sloane their future. Her lips drew tight and Sloane glanced across the dining room, as if checking to make sure that their server wasn’t approaching with a nervous but hopeful look in their eye. “It must be frustrating, given the uncertainty of all of it, knowing that even if you were to draw upon a conclusion that you were positive was the truth there would still be people like me to question its validity.”
Her tone wasn’t apologetic or sympathetic. Merely factual, almost dismissive if not for the four fingers that Sloane held up to prompt Lynn forward.
“It’s good, the skepticism,” Lynn smirked, “healthy even. My curse is a curse at the end of the day, I’ve gotten more adept at using it but I will never be able to say for certain what the future may hold. The skepticism keeps me grounded,” Lynn paused as she leaned back, “I don’t want to do it alone though, we’ve tried that before and the results weren’t pretty.”
“Sometimes with foresight we see what we want to see, but hindsight’s always twenty-twenty. Maybe at the time going alone made the most sense,” muttered Sloane, folding her arms. It sounded like Sloane was making an excuse for Lynn, but really she was thinking about the emptied out vaults and stolen artifacts that was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to her colossal fuckup. How much damage it would do to the hull of the city remained to be seen.
“It is easy to blame you for the mistakes made back in the day,” said Sloane, her eyes downcast, knowing that her voice, while never one of the loudest, had joined in with the chorus when it came to blaming Lynn when her predictions had done harm. The harder thing to accept was that the others were equally if not more so responsible for what had happened by choosing to listen to Lynn’s unproven prophecies in the first place. Sloane cleared her throat and looked up at Lynn.
“But that doesn’t make it right. You might find this funny, given how skeptical I am when it comes to your foresight, but I practice a little divination of my own. Tarot, mostly. Just about every morning. The thing is that whenever I do a reading I don’t suddenly assume that it's the word of god. They’re just cards, after all. I’m the one choosing to believe in them. So, it’s not the cards fault if they turn out to be wrong. It’s my fault for investing too much faith in them, you see,” said Sloane, taking a sip of her coffee. “Anyway…”
“I get it,” Lynn frowned. This was the only downside to asking for help from Sloane. “And I do not doubt your own divination ability, I did not know that about you but I suppose it only makes sense,” Lynn paused as she took a deep breath, “but this is precisely why I asked for your help. You will not sugarcoat your distrust of my predictions, you will not have the same emotional investment that I or others have. Hell, I told Ken my predictions and he told me he was willing to open up his relationship with Kari to let me back in. I need help figuring this out, and I am confident one of these ten is true. More confident than whether you would like the food I ordered, anything involving the snake, and more confident than what the future holds for anyone else in the coven,” Lynn paused as she took a deep breath. “I can talk to anyone else and get coddled, told that the future I want is the true one, and that there is no way for Kari to be a monster. I don’t need that, I need you.”
Sloane nodded curtly as if she were accepting some great responsibility and took another sip from her coffee, hiding a little smile. “So, future number four then?”
Lynn held up four fingers. “One of our former coven members is trying to do something evil, and to stop them Kari has adopted the disguise of Father Wolf to kill them and their associates.”
“Ridiculous!” Sloane let out a sharp, bitter laugh. [color=silver]“There’s absolutely no way that one is the case. I’d be the first to admit that some of our former covenmates have questionable moralities, but I was close with several of Father Wolf’s victims. The only thing slightly dubious about Jade was her taste in men.”[/close]
Her own personal basis refused to allow her to accept the idea that Jinhai had also been a part of some shadow cabal, but Sloane kept that to herself.
“For the argument’s sake, let's say that this was the case. There’s some grand conspiracy that Kari discovered and, considering my knee jerk reaction, she knew it was futile to try to reveal it to anyone. Why go through all of the theatrics with the wolf idol? Why make all of the murders directly linked together and risk exposing yourself sooner? Why fake your own death? The conspirators would realize that only their faction was being targeted, so one outlier would immediately be alarming,” said Sloane with a shrug, noting the idea anyway.
“Honestly I did not even think of it like that. If it was this one it would be painfully obvious to the rest of them that Kari was on the hunt,” Lynn smirked as she shook her head, “I think your analysis is spot on.”. Lynn held up five fingers. “Kari faked her death to stop something worse. The worse was a variable and there was never a clear rationale behind them in the far future. One time it was to stop the snake from being released, another to stop something called The Great Old One from being summoned.”
“Kari was one of the earliest victims. Third or fourth, I think. It's hard to believe that she was aware of Father Wolf as a concept at that point to kill a copy of herself similar to how his other victims were murdered, but even still,” said Sloane. Her pen came to a halt with a scratch. “Kari plans to do this alone? This threat is so bad that she's willing to get her alternative self killed and then let the people who could help her be hunted down like animals when she could easily solve the Father Wolf case and get some backup? Even if she didn't want our help, did she seem like the kind of person to turn her back on everyone else? You'd think she'd anonymously drop a lead if this were the case.”
“Unless it was more risky to bring us into the fold, but I agree. In this possible future that is what she told me at least. She told us that she thought it was better to work from the shadows than to help us fight in the light you know?”
Sloane shook her head. “Riskier for who? Her, obviously, since we’re already dying. I think I much prefer the realities where she’s trying to murder us over the ones where she just doesn’t care.”
Lynn thought long and hard at the response. Sloane was right. If Kari was fighting from the shadows why hasn’t she asked for help? Why hasn’t she done more to stop these deaths? Her power was never one that was offensive, and unless she suddenly found access to some powerful artifacts she would not be able to fight all by herself. She would need help. Which would beg the question, why not ask for it? And if she did, and those who did not return to the coven were at her side fighting this father wolf, why not bring everyone else back into the fold? Lynn held up six fingers.
“Kari accidentally swapped souls trying to survive father wolf. Her body died here but she lives on in another universe.”
“How?” asked Sloane flatly, setting her pen down without taking a note and answering her own question before Lynn could get a word in edgewise. “I suppose she had a possession of some kind of artifact that allowed her to do this?”
“She could always sense when death was coming for someone, herself included, and she found an artifact right before Father Wolf got to her, and she spent her time in the other universe trying to get back.”
”Sacrificing her other self yet again,” said Sloane with a tsk.
Lynn held up seven fingers, “She saw death coming for her and swapped bodies with another universe’s Kari to get a second chance at life away from the drama of our universe. She was tired of us, our infighting, and simply gave up on us and is happy in the other universe.”
“Same as the previous one, only intentional instead of accidental,” said Sloane. “If those were the realities we’re in it would be quite difficult to suss out without a White Lux user. Impossible, maybe, if Kari swapped on purpose instead of accidentally.”
Sloane went to make a note then paused, looking up at Lynn with a blank expression that hid a growing uncertainty.
“It’s also quite similar to the second future. Almost identical, really,” said Sloane, curling an arrow on her note from the seventh point to the second. Something else about these theories were similar. A set of recurring themes, swapping between abandonment and selfishness. If Sloane were a psychoanalyst she might’ve prompted Lynn with a few leading questions regarding her relationship with Kari and how things had ended. Instead, she just leaned into an assumption as she asked, “Have you ever noticed if personal biases or preconceived beliefs ever influence some of the futures you see? Or are they random draws formed from something more nebulous?”
“There’s always personal biases in choices,” Lynn added as she took another drink of her mimosa finishing it with a heavy chug, “less so when we deal with finite endings. If there was a never ending supply of possible futures I’d be willing to say that there’s a strong chance of my own opinions and beliefs tainting the results. With ten futures I think we can filter out what those may be.”
“It's just that most of these futures paint Kari as being extremely selfish or callous. It doesn’t quite gel with the Kari I remember, but I suppose we weren’t very close. It’s possible that I only saw a superficial version of her that she wanted me to see,” said Sloane nonchalantly. “Still, we’ll need the full sample before we start filtering. I rather we not give unneeded value to what could very well just be a string of coincidences.”
“Rapid fire,” Lynn held up eight fingers, “Father Wolf is swapping people when they kill, bullshit, the other ghosts would have revealed that,” Lynn paused as she held up nine fingers, “Kari is working for father wolf for the greater good. Some corruption lingers in us from our fight with the snake, and we’re all ticking time bombs. The ones who are killed are those who fall to that corruption and Kari does not know who is and isn’t compromised,” Lynn paused as she held up all ten fingers, “Lyss summoned the wrong Kari spirit,” Lynn smirked at the idea.
Sloane was grateful that Lynn was able to eliminate the obvious dud of the next three theories. There was something worrisome about the ninth idea, seeing as how it echoed with something Drake had suggested that night at Dairy Queen. It was already something that Sloane didn’t like thinking about considering how that evening went, but the idea that the Stygian Snake had essentially planted something in them and was using them as sleeper agents was disturbing. That theory was still muddy—Kari would be as vulnerable as the rest of them—but it held more weight than the last one. Sloane shook her head as she noted it down, gave them a once over, and then drew a conclusion, albeit not a final one.
“Boiling these down, there are three basic ideas,” said Sloane. Like Lynn, Sloane introduced each point by raising a finger, tapping her pen against each one as she presented the summary. “Kari is Father Wolf or working with them, Kari is innocent and in another universe, or Lyss somehow fucked up so hard that she developed a new spell.” Sloane twirled the pen between her fingers and added, “I’d be curious to see which one you believe is the most likely, but first I’d like to ask you to indulge me for a moment. I listened to ten of your futures, so I believe it’d only be fair if you were to shut down one possible future that has only just occurred to me.”
“Is it possible that none of these futures are correct due to your search being based upon misinformation?” asked Sloane, leaning forward as she propped her chin underneath her hand. “Say that instead of Lyss talking to the wrong Kari, Lyss actually talked to the right Kari and we were just fed a lie by Auri and Adora?”
“You know me, Sloane, I usually always add a disclaimer like ‘this may happen’ or ‘there’s a possibility that this could happen’ you know? Because I don’t usually talk with complete certainty but this time I know one is right even if I can’t find the words to get the point across. This time feels different,” Lynn said as she looked to the table in frustration.
What Lynn called disclaimers Sloane called outs, ways for Lynn to wash away any responsibility if a prediction failing to come true left someone in dire disrepair. Whatever they called it, the point Lynn was making still worked. It didn’t outright remove the fear that they were all being played—Lyss being the one killed by Father Wolf instead of someone else in the Coven still made it feel like their enemy was someone who knew them—but it kept it from stepping into the foreground and blinding Sloane of other options. It also eased the pain in her stomach that had started to form when she realized she had potentially just given a powerful Counterfeit to someone who could not be trusted.
“I believe you,” said Sloane. Whether she believed that one of these futures were right or she simply believed that Lynn was certain that was the case she did not clarify. Sloane too stared at the table, studying all of the delicious food that her fleeting appetite no longer found appealing. Sloane sighed. “For what it’s worth, I hope that of these possible futures the truth is one where our Kari is living a life somewhere else.”
“However, given the two we can exclude, we’re basically left with a coin flip between two scenarios: Kari is gone, or Kari is working against us. No matter what we want to be true, we should proceed forward with the belief that Father Wolf has access to Kari’s abstraction. Which means…”
They’re fucked. Sloane put her head in her hand. That scrying bitch. It was the easiest explanation as to how Father Wolf was so effortless with their assassinations. Sloane tried to think of a more elegant way to express that idea to Lynn, doubtful that she would even need the picture to be painted for her, when the waiter appeared with the bill.
“No rush on that,” said the server, shuffling away quickly before Sloane could even start to reach for the bill. Then suddenly he was back, a shine of sweat on his forehead and a hint of blush on his cheeks, desperately holding on to the tray as Sloane’s fingers touched it. “S-sorry, um, it’s just, um, it’s for her. O-okay, enjoy your meal, I mean, thank you from coming, um—”
Sloane snatched the tray before Lynn could try to pay for it and the waiter bolted again. She read the receipt, her eyes narrowing and her nose wrinkling as she scoffed and handed the bill to Lynn. Scrawled at the bottom of the check in jittery, thin handwriting was the following:
Can I Have Your #? accompanied by a phone number.
“He seems a little timid, no?” Lynn chuckled as she made a mental note of the number. He could be her latest mistake for all Lynn knew, and she was not having any luck up to this point with the men and women on the dating apps. She slid the bill back to Lynn, knowing full well that Sloane would have the cursed knife at her throat if she tried to pay. “It would mean we are more fucked than we already are,” Lynn paused as she leaned back, ready to draw Sloane into the real meat of the meeting, “We need to find Kari’s Wayfinder.”
Sloane, her neck craning to look behind her so she could catch the eye of the server and admonish him for his unprofessionalism, snapped back to look at Lynn. It wasn’t immediately clear as to why Lynn thought they needed the Wayfinder, but Sloane knew it would be just the thing to be able to track down parts of her missing collection. Her lips curled up into what someone could argue was technically a smile.
“Yes, absolutely!” said Sloane, her sudden enthusiasm was like a convict bursting out of a maximum security prison—riddled with bullets and left to bleed out in the yard. She sunk a little in her chair. “But wouldn’t it presumably just be on Kari’s person?”
“Oh for sure. If she is alive, that is with her at all times. So we need to find one of the mass-produced versions, Goro to make another, or,” Lynn leaned back as she smirked, “find someone to make another artifact to help us do the same.”
Sloane frowned. If Lynn was referring to her then she really needed to stop daydreaming about the future and consider taking a look into history. Sloane couldn't do it with just raw Lux, and if they got the materials she needed to make a Counterfeit then by then it'd be a moot point.
“Well, we'd have to find someone else then,” said Sloane, dropping her credit card in the tray and setting it on the edge of the table. “Goro’s missing and unless you have a manifest showing where the copies are we wouldn't have anywhere to really start looking.”
“The future has told me, with confidence, where we might find one of the replicas is, though I was hoping to avoid it,” the color drained from Lynn’s face, “Goro’s replica can be found on Yoko who is currently in the Pit looking for her brother.”
“Lynn—”
Sloane held back her tongue, instead rolling her eyes as she shook her head in disbelief. Sloane knew very little about the Pit outside of what they had seen in the shared dreams,but she knew enough that going into it was absolutely fucking stupid—hench why someone like Yoko would apparently do it.. Sloane realized that in her own excitement over the Wayfinder she had failed to receive a key piece of information.
“You must really believe that finding the Wayfinder is a necessity to even consider an option as suicidal as that. Why do you want it so badly?” asked Sloane.
“Scorched earth. If Kari is alive, she’s either fighting for us or killing us. If it’s the latter we need to find the one thing that can get us on an equal plane as our killer,” Lynn paused as she made a fist, “Plus, tomorrow’s meeting will be filled with terrible ideas that lead nowhere, infighting, and a lack of direction. We’re all going to die if we don’t solve this,” Lynn paused as she stared at Sloane with a fiery intensity, “we need to even the odds and the wayfinder is how we do that.”
“And we do that by, what?” Sloane let out a derisive laugh. “Telling everyone it’s time for a little romp through the Pit?”
“Yeah, yeah when you say it like that,” Lynn sighed, “it sounds like a terrible idea.” Lynn sighed as she leaned back again in her chair. “But what do we have to show for any good idea? Have we gotten any closer to solving this mystery? Have we found out who is murdering us? Have we functioned at even a tenth of the organized chaos that was the first coven? The future may be unclear about which side of the fence Kari is on but it is clear we’ll need to take some huge risks soon,” Lynn paused as she considered bringing up the possibility of fighting, war, and death coming towards the city but she knew she could not. The future was clear that if she revealed things out of turn it would deviate the group away from the path of success. “I do not want to go to the pit, I do not want my friends to go to the pit, I do not even want my fucking enemies to go to the pit. But the pit sits at a crossroads for us, and I feel we’ll have to go through it at some point soon regardless.”
“Well, at some point in my life I am also going to die but you don’t see me rushing off to jump in front of the first bus I see or weighing down my pockets with stones and going for a swim. If we have to cross the Pit to get through this then we can, but that’s most certainly not the next step,” said Sloane. She had said if, not when, revealing clearly how skeptical she was about Lynn’s crossroads idea. “The next thing we need to do is follow up on this lead with 8th Street. They took something from Kari’s, and perhaps that something is what we’d need to finally start making some progress. Because you’re right, we haven’t really accomplished anything except to prove that it was a good idea for the Coven to dissolve.”
“But it is a relief to me that you realize the current iteration of Sycamore is absolutely dysfunctional and because of that it isn’t working,” said Sloane, casually gesturing to Lynn. “Try to remember that the next time you think about starting a fight with Linqian.”
“Oh,” that bitch, that unrelenting cunt, that unforgivable piece of shit who forgot that Lynn was also a person who lost, lost, and lost some more well before the first fucking kid died to the snake. “I’m working on that,” Lynn said as she averted her eyes to the waiter who was sneaking glances at her from across the restaurant. Maybe a mistake was what she needed to forget the mention of the worst person that this planet ever put forth. Just a week, maybe a month, of just fucking meaningless fucking. Anything would be better than spending even another moment talking about that fucking cunt Linqian. “I am sorry for what I said, Sloane. I wanted to hurt Linqian, but I said something unforgivable to hurt her. And I did not think of how that would hurt everyone else,” Lynn knew that Sloane cared for Jinhai, “and you. I’m sorry Sloane. Truly.”
A genuine, real apology was not what Sloane had expected. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as a succession of what-ifs where Jinhai was still alive flipped through her mind. It was pointless to think about. He was nothing more than ashes hidden away in Linqian’s cabinet now. A stab of guilt hit her in the chest. It had been about a week since she’d promised Linqian to help fundraise for a memorial service for Jinhai. She looked up at Lynn. There was no point in presenting that to her.
“Whatever. If you want to apologize to someone, you should apologize to Linqian. I get that she’s an idiot and a bitch, but she isn’t the enemy. Or don’t, I don’t really care. Anyway, we’re all going through hell as it is, no need to turn up the heat,” said Sloane. The advice was to herself as much as it was to Lynn.
No. Never. Absolutely not. That cunt did not deserve the satisfaction of hearing Lynn say she was sorry. She was not sorry for forgetting about Lynn’s past, Linqian took the first shot across the bow and it would only be fixed by sending the first apology across it. “I’ll see what I can do. Anyway, based on the possible futures and the themes I’ve told you, if you had to pick one option that you considered the most likely, what one would you pick? Curious to see what you think.”
“It’s difficult to say. If it had been a few years ago, I would find the idea that Kari abandoned all of us without saying anything to go live a better life in another dimension impossible to believe. Now I could be convinced. Kari was one of the few people in Sycamore I still kept in contact with, but this summer she essentially started ghosting me. So maybe she did just give up,” said Sloane, her teeth gritted.
“It’s also possible that she’s trying to stop something worse , but I don’t know. When I consider Father Wolf’s efficiency and ability to skirt any surveillance it’s easy to imagine that something similar to Kari’s Observation spells is being used. While she could strike with surprise, I don’t see Kari being able to overpower almost any of Father Wolf’s victims—and I don’t think she’d fake her own death if she was Father Wolf either, as that would make it more difficult to approach her victims. So,” said Sloane, pausing before saying that she believed Kari was working with Father Wolf for the greater good.
And in that pause doubt crept in. Sloane found it difficult to throw herself behind the idea that Father Wolf’s actions were justifiable in any way. She couldn’t accept a reality where Jade or Jinhai deserved to die, nor did she want to believe in one where she was just as likely to fall to the influence of the Stygian Snake after they had already beaten the damn thing. Perhaps it wasn’t doubt that made Sloane pause after all, but a fear that this reality had a decent chance of being the truth. A reality where their attempts to thwart Father Wolf was the wrong course of action, where they were little more than just puppets waiting to be pulled by their strings.
No fucking way.
“So…”
Unacceptable.
Lynn was wrong. Simple as that. Sloane had said it herself earlier: It’s my fault for investing too much faith in them. This had all been another waste of time. Right? Right! Right. Sloane stared at the spread. The slices of pears had begun to brown at the edges while the filling of the stuffed mushrooms had begun to congeal, the starting signs of rot, rotting away like her skin in Luca’s embrace, rotting away like her willpower against the influences of the Stygian Snake. Sloane blinked, shook her head, and deflated with a frustrated exhale, catching her head in her hands as her eternal migraine began stirring itself free from its slumber
“I don’t know,” said Sloane but what she had meant to say was, “I don’t want to know.”
The future was an unforgiving place.
“That’s okay. The conversation alone has helped me focus on it more, and I am not going to put my eggs into this one basket. I made so many mistakes before trying to figure it out on my own, having someone think things over is more helpful than you know,” Lynn was telling the truth. “If I ever need another interpretation, can I give you a call?”
There was the slightest bit of hesitation before Sloane nodded her head.
“Yes, of course,” said Sloane, sitting back up right, unable to resist her desire to be involved despite her apprehension towards what might be revealed next. Her eyes lingered on the receipt paper with the waiter’s number before looking up at Lynn. “Speaking of calls, you aren’t planning to, are you?”
“Not at all,” Lynn said confidently despite the fact that she had committed the number to memory. “I should get going, Lila will get her wings under control soon and I want to be there for her. I promise, I won’t bring up too much stuff at the meeting tomorrow regarding this. Unless someone brings up a crazy idea first.”
“Speaking of journeys, the future points towards one filled with horror and tribulation,” Lynn finally stepped forward as she looked over to Sloane and mouthed a sorry. “There is one artifact that can answer all our questions and needs for security. One that would tell us where Kari is, one that would find all of the stolen artifacts, one that would reveal the location of each and every member of 8th street in case a war to break out, where farther wolf truly is,” Lynn paused as she looked to Britney then to Auri, “Kari’s Wayfinder. That, or one of its replicas. I know where they are, I know we will be able to get them,” Lynn took a few steps forward as she looked to Lila and Jasper. This was a pivotal moment. One that would surely start a war amongst the members. But enough should see the logic behind it, and with their support she should be able to lead the support element.
“Do you all remember Goro? They have a sibling named Yoko. Goro has been missing since searching for the abberation killer in New York. I believe he found it, but can’t get away from where he is at. As such, his sister has departed with the Wayfinder and several replicas and we will be able to get one or the other. And we will find all of them,” Lynn paused as she took in a deep breath, “In a place where hope goes to die. The Pit, ” Lynn paused as she looked across the group letting the revelation settle, “and in each ten possible futures I’ve narrowed down it is a vital piece of the puzzle to solve this Kari drama.”
“Are you insane,” Aaron going a gasp as he took three steps forward in quick succession, “the pit? Where we might die simply by walking the wrong way at the wrong time? Where we will be hunted by monsters every second of every day and never know a moment of peace while we’re there,” Aaron paused as he took another few steps forward, “that Pit?”
“The very same.”
“And how do you suspect we navigate this hellscape?”
Lynn paused as she felt the question weigh on her. It was l a daunting task. Yet they had a few options up their sleeve, ones that would make the struggle that much more bearable. “The spy,” Lynn paused as she pointed to Luna. “the wolf,” she pointed towards Leon, “the storm,” she pointed towards Drake, “and the false prophet,” Lynn paused as she took in a deep breath and pointed to herself. “You do not survive the horror of the pit by being the fastest, or the strongest, or the bravest. You survive by being versatile, being able to see the threats before they come. And you survive by knowing what comes next each and every moment you’re there.”
“You are-”
“Insane if you think any… anyone would… do, why are you.. you’re just.. Stop you asshole.”
Lynn and Aaron paused as they locked eyes. Aaron’s betraying the building rage, Lynn’s calm and collected and filled with confidence for the first time in a decade.
“This doesn’t prove anything. Just because you can see a future that is more than likely bullshit, doesn’t mean you’ll be able to protect everyone in the mother fucking Pit.”
“The future is ever unclear, but it’s easy when it’s a predictable,” Lynn paused as she looked at Aryin, and then Linqian, “I can do this. With Luna we have a strong scout who has so much to prove to us,” she knew that they were going to try and leave but giving her the carrot that was a path to redemption would be a newly irresistible draw. “With Leon we’ll have a fighter who will be at home ripping, and tearing the monsters to shreds. With Drake we have powerful spells to send even the most crazed of the pit inhabitants running, and with me you’ll have knowledge of-.”
“What? Something that might happen but may not and to…. Fuck you. After what you said to Linqian you’re lucky I…”
“Not only will we find the Wayfinders, we have the chance at finding other powerful artifacts and those who embark on this journey will return forever stronger,” Lynn paused as she sighed, “one thing is certain. We’ve tried, and tried, only the good options to keep us safe. We need to take a risk like we did when we fought the snake. Greenwood is about to walk through the door.”
