Living In Memory

This week's story continues our In Council investigation of the mysterious spirit-bound entities that attacked Dwight, Martha, and Russ. Martha and Russ, and Dwight's brother Len, have followed the spirit-bound trail to, they hope, the source.

Whoever has turned those street kids into vessels for the monsters in the dark, they've taken shelter in an old, decaying mansion in the Garden District. An old home that Len and Dwight know from their childhood. They have memories there, of work and of friendship.

At least one of those friends still lives. What is it that awaits our investigators, dear reader, when they put their feet on the path of...

Living In Memory - an In Council story by M. K. Dreysen

She'd like to sit by a window and remember. But Jess Statton doesn't get that opportunity these days.

Her caretaker doesn't see a benefit from it. Jess's caretaker says that sitting up in bed is "About as much as your old bones can handle, Jessica. You trust me in this, correct?"

Jess doesn't know. If she trusts her caretaker any more.

She knows she'd like to sit in the wheelchair, if someone would help her into it. Jess knows she doesn't really have the strength to do that on her own. She can barely push up enough to sit against the headboard.

Jess tried... six... eight months ago? Time doesn't have the meaning it once did.

She knows she spent more than a night on the floor. Crying, tearing bits of the wool from her father's favorite floor rug. Jess tries to remember how much time passed before her caretaker found her. That way.

Jess knows that Illana yelled at her. Not for hurting herself. Not for the mess.

For doing what Illana didn't want done. Trying something for herself. Trying to recover something. Some small piece of what Jessica Statton used to be. Before all this.

Before Illana came to stay.

They met at a gala. The museum hosts them; Jess still attended, then. Careful hands on her walker. An eagle eye out for chairs, she'd known young Richard, the museum's wonderful director of all such celebrations, long enough to be sure he'd have chairs placed around the room, where she could hold court if she wanted.

Or just sit in the corner and catch her breath. Jess had never been able to give all that much money to the museum, or the ballet or the opera. But the Doctor her father had begun the tradition, his version of putting a little money, however little, in the plate every Sunday. Jess often felt embarrassed at the fuss Richard made over her.

Her little checks couldn't have meant enough to justify the invitations she loved to receive, much less the work Richard put into insuring Jess felt some small comfort here.

In amongst navigating her chairs, Jess had noticed Illana.

Illana had spent the evening watching her. Jess wasn't surprised when, after she'd found her way at last to a quiet corner where only the waiter, James, bothered her, that Illana eventually snuck along to ask her questions.

They'd been very good questions. Jessica had already started asking herself those questions. Sure the obvious ones, health, feeling.

Who is taking care of you?

No one, Jess didn't say.

She didn't have to, in the end. All Jess had needed to do, really, was not object when Illana moved in. Nor when she'd asked for signatures. "Just for your day to day living, Jessica. Your estate is in the hands of your lawyers, as it should be. I just need to make sure I can take care of the house. And you of course."

Jess had wondered about that "Of course." She'd been still active enough to do that, then. Now, she could still wonder, but the horizon Jess could bring herself to focus on had shrunk down to such a small, narrow field.

With only room for a handful of things to wonder over. Why Illana didn't want Jess to sit in her chair by her lovely window, that was the big one. Jessica Statton had made her peace with the rest of it. Old friends, and most of all Jason and Daddy and Momma, waited just a few breaths away. She just wished, wondered at why she couldn't sit and enjoy the late summer shadows once in a while.

She didn't have room enough in her little field to wonder at the noises outside of her door.

Not at first.

Not until the handle, an old brass lever, twisted down. To allow the door to open, just a bit. Enough for a hand to appear, clutching a cane.

And then a face, one that managed to open Jessica Statton's field to a little more wonder. "DT?"

****

"Are your days always like this?" Russ whispered to Martha.

"How do you mean?"

Russ had a list. Big dark scary house. Shadows skulking along the walkway to the big dark scary house, with bugs and lamplight that wanted to cling to his clothes and pry at his secrets and an iron gate that grew claws when he tried to pass it. Spirits that raised themselves in concert with these warning signs, raised and wailed their heartbreak in Russ's ears.

The strange figure hovering just a few inches above the oak floors.

Russ had many questions. But then the lightning flared and he decided to shelve them in favor of ducking behind a sofa. "Martha!" he yelled. Because whispering meant sneaking. And sneaking had gone right out the window.

"Working on it."

"Yeah, uh-huh," Russ muttered to himself. Then he twisted over to his knees and added a crawl to his list. "Can I help?"

Len, still in the foyer, eased his head around the corner, then yanked it back from the bolt flying his way. "What is she? Can you catch her for just a minute?" he called.

'Right,' Russ thought. He swung his hand out around the sofa corner. When nothing happened, he did it again. This time, the sofa caught a flare of heat and light. Russ jumped up and ran to the next doorway before the generator could recharge. 'Ok, it's a kitchen, ok I can work with that.'

Another bolt chased him down to the floor and around a cabinet. 'At least so far she's staying in place.'

Everyone's mind works a little different. Martha liked her computers and cameras and lasers; Russ pulled a string of rosary beads from his pocket and started counting them off while he let his ears and skin do the work.

Feel the sweat and the pulse... then the pressure. Of her, whoever she was... they'd tracked her to this house, Len reminding them, "Don't get caught worrying about who it might be. Yeah, we know who owns the place, but that doesn't mean she's the one responsible. The Jessica DT and I knew couldn't have bound those spirits."

Right, ok fine, but there's a lot of learning in fifty plus years of time, Russ knew that. Only, as soon as the three of them had made their way, DT in the car and waiting, this lady had greeted them at the door...

Russ's feet had wanted to get moving and make tracks when she'd opened the door. Well, Russ did admit that he'd wanted to run as soon as he'd seen the place. But she'd let fear come out, someway, with the opening of the doorway.

"I know who you are," the lady had said. "And why you've come."

And then the world, the part of it in the doorway, turned inside out. Len had raised his hands to meet that change, and pushed. The negative space, and the lady hovering in it with blacklight rushing across her face and back, had fled away but only a few yards. Len had strode through still pressing and Martha had followed.

And here come Russ. He let the pressure, the strangeness wash over him. Waves of it. He ignored the creeping indigo and reached. There.

He didn't have time or experience yet to identify. He just knew that he had a hold of something. So he grabbed with mind and hands for the fluctuating shadows and told himself that it would hold, he would hold. "Martha!" he yelled. "Len? Somebody, please, I can't hold her for long!"

Martha knew that Len would be the one. Russ had done the necessary. Her job was to bridge from the one to the other. She opened the bottle, put her thumb over the top, and started dribbling. First to Len. Then over to Russ.

And finally around Russ's prisoner of the moment. Martha swallowed against the tightness in her throat, tried not to look up. The lightning, purple-white flashes, fluttered against the ceiling. The lady still generated it, but every time she tried to focus it Russ yanked.

Hard enough, so far, so that the lady tilted over and burnt the ceiling instead of Martha.

Martha tried to ignore that the lady wasn't going over as far, that Russ's pulls were getting shorter, less violent. Martha dribbled the oil around beneath their floating bound attacker, accompanied by grasping neon echoes tearing at the floorboard.

When she finished, Martha ran to join Russ, Len's worried eyes on her back as she knelt, tasted the oil and judged it good. Martha looked up and nodded.

Len thumbed a match alight and touched it to the oil. He watched the flame front chase its way across to Russ and Martha, and then back and around the circle of imprisonment. And when the line had completed, Len took a breath of relief and stood up again.

Ignoring the way his knees popped and his hip complained. No time for that and compared to DT... nope, Len didn't have time for worries.

"Should I have brought my mask?" he asked the room.

"Like this isn't scary enough?" Martha called back. Then she put her hand on Russ's shoulder. "Ok, you can relax now. Len's got her."

By the time Dwight made his way through the living room, Martha locking her arm through his for support, the flames had burnt down to remnants that looked like someone had let their grandkids use the living room for a skate park. And the lady, "Illana Nash" Len had discovered, had gone from hovering in a negative space UV disco lit with electricity from beyond to a willowy, vacant, staring bundle of nerves sitting in a rather severe Continental chair next to the fireplace.

"Go check on Jessica, DT," Len said. "Russ and I have some work to do here."

Dwight nodded at Len, then turned to survey the room itself.

The only sign that anyone other than Illana Nash lived here was a cart in the corner, stacked with medicines, glucose and pressure monitors, incontinence supplies, and a sheaf of opened mail.

Martha felt Dwight flinch, then she saw the cart. "Later. Let's find your friend first."

Dwight pulled in a big breath, shuddered it loose, then turned to the stairs. "Right. Just be patient with me."

"Take your time."

****

Len had finished with his questions when Martha came back downstairs. "She wants to see you too."

Len took a deep breath before heading for the stairs. "How is she?"

Martha shook her head. "She doesn't have long."

Len nodded and headed up. Martha turned to Russ. "Did you get anywhere?"

Russ shrugged. "I... there... the spirit that took her didn't have a reason for being here." He looked around the room.

Like he could find a reason, hiding somewhere even the spirit-bound hadn't found it. Martha stood in the middle of the room, watching Illana sleep. "You're sure it was a spirit? Not double-guessing you, just..."

Russ nodded. "There's no doubt. Len's promised he'll help me get rid of it, after." Russ waved to the ceiling. "After whatever they need to do."

Martha echoed the nod. "Predators don't need a lot of reason for what they do, Russ. The only thing they really need is a target." She remembered the bedroom, the wheelchair, and the cart full of medicines for those at the end of their journey. "Preferably a weak one."

Russ didn't know what he thought of that. But he had plenty of time to work at it, waiting for Len and Dwight to come back downstairs and finish the day's business.