Echo
It's actually a peaceful place, were it not for the fact that Margot knew there had been a dead body here back in June. With a little digging and information she would remember that it was the body of one Jacqueline Paix- a ski instructor and Colorado Springs native. The two of them headed out tot eh edge of El Paso county, watching likely as the mountains became larger and tree cover became less sparse. The body had been found by an avid hiker who had decided to go a little off the rails, it would seem- Evelyn Murray. Forty-something, kids in college (out of state), finally really breaking down and enjoying her divorced years after a clean split.
It was just horrible, Murray reported, those blank eyes. I thought it had been drugs- it had to be. She was so young, nobody shoots a kid like that unless it was over drugs.
Like that. Like that meant the bullet holes in the woman- the one in the head, according to the report. But reports are incomplete, you know. Margot would have known it, Ned would have known it. There was a suspicious lack of evidence on this one, and a suspicious lack of digging that likely left a bad taste in their mouths. Whatever time of day they got to the area was inconsequential, because the quiet of the place was the same. The wind barely blew, and though fireflies drifted on and off just barely in the distance near some pond it appeared to be the only living movement in the area. The air was cold when it came into their lungs, no matter how warm it felt on their skin.
This was the right place.
Margot
The drive south was a pretty one. The mountains grew more ambitious in their reaching toward the sky, and trees crowded the peaks and summits closely enough to be deemed a 'forest' now. The road was two lanes only, one in either direction, and Margot minded the speed limit and tried not to spook Ned the Vehicular Passenger too much when she asked him to help her keep an eye on the sides of the roads for deer.
There were no encounters of the cervine kind, and Margot pulled her car off on the shoulder of the road closest to the murder site. She thought initially to park a good half a mile away for the sake of flying under the radar, but ultimately decided against it. They were remote enough that anybody who might connect her car with the murder would do so even if she were parked a full two miles away instead. Plus, when you dicked around with Magick and sent whispers through the Gauntlet to invite things through, it was good to have an escape route planned. She wanted to be as close within sprinting distance of the car as she could manage.
She locked up and pocketed her keys and rouned to the front of the car to look at the scene off the road's shoulder slope. She was dressed in a pair of dark jeans with the cuffs tucked into a pair of hiking boots, with a black tank top left on after she'd shed her red flannel and tied it around her waist instead. A faded black backpack that wasn't originally intended for hiking but did the trick fine was on her back, and her hands held the straps at chest level. Fieflies flitted on the horizon, testing their beacons in the dying afternoon light, readying them for the evening soon to fall.
"Night's the time for the dead," she'd explained to him if any question on the timing had come up. In this moment, though, with the mountains to the west casting early shadows on the land, she took a breath and glanced over to Ned.
"Ready to meet Jacqueline?"
Ned
"Says you and John Carpenter."
Ned would throw back. a distracted flutter of head turns sending his gaze around and about at the terrain and forestry, minimal though it might be. The mountains loomed over them with dreadful suggestion, sending his thoughts back to imagining what it must have been like for the poor woman who had been found out here. Part of Ned's curiosity suggested to him that there had been some game played. A chase or a hunt of some sort, with the young woman, Jacqueline as the target of someone's sense of the dramatic. He'd mentally gone over some of the work he'd put into memorizing various efforts to ensure a surprise if they ran into similar trouble.
"I'm ready to deal with this. Best I can say at this point, is there's no telling what condition she'll be in or even if stual he's going to be available. I imagine this sort of trauma leaves behind a pretty disturbed individual." Ned's memories coasted over their mutual ghostly history at the thought, a vague grimness catching his features. He was dressed in a simple black T=shirt and cargo pants, a knife sheath tucked into the waistband at the small of his back. He'd foregone any sort of carrying case or satchel, in favour of a water bottle tucked into his back pocket.
"Remember what I said. I get possessed you make sure to blind me and run. Count the spaces between the car and the crime scene so you know how far to go." They had not discussed what would happen if Margot was the one who got possessed. Ned didn't have Spirit, afterall.
Echo
It was smart to make allowances for potential spiritual possession, all things told. It was a real and dangerous possibility here, headed out into the wilderness- in a place where the barriers betweent he worlds may have been low enough that it made a real and true difference. Perhaps that had been the point- of course it had been the point. The reason behind coming out here (that and the fact that Margot had some spatial limitations when it came to her magickal practices).
The rocks are smooth and worn over the creek. The moon is three quarters of the way to full, lends itself more to illumination but there was no time to think of the moon and her symbols. That language was not spoken here; the air kept its secrets. No language would be spoken at all.
A perimeter is easily set, and sure as they can tell they are alone out here. Let it be said that this place is one of solitude.
Margot
Ned's penchant for pragmatism came in handy a lot of the time. Margot wouldn't have considered a back-up plan to possession. His concern-heavy voice on the subject of the deceased Jacqueline Paix's psychotrauma had the little blood witch settling a similarly concerned look onto the side of his face.
"You remember the girl-spirit from the frat house?" Of course he did. "She was tormented by her death. She tormented herself even worse afterwards. But she wasn't inherently bad. Maybe because she wasn't built to be, or maybe because she wasn't given enough time to get there, but we could communicate with her. She got what she wanted and left. This lady here and now? She's only been dead a few months. And I doubt she died a villian." Even as she tried reassuring him (herself as well) that this spirit was unlikely to want to attack or harm them, doubt sparked dull red and inconspicuous in the edges of her voice. There were too many variables that were different here, of course she couldn't guarantee the temperament of a summoned victim.
All the same, she took a breath and set off away from the gravel of the road's shoulder, the bottom of her boots slipping and pulling on the long grass that sloped down to a shallow ditch. From there she'd start forward, her path clearly set toward the small pond that was visible from the roadside. The lapping water and bright outline of the moon pushing through the dim periwinkles of dusk on its surface spoke to her, to Her, in a particular manner.
It was at the edge of the pond, several feet from the edge, that Margot settled. She sat down upon her knees with the heels of her boots tucked under her rump and opened the backpack that she'd shrugged off onto the ground beside her. From within she produced a couple of things: a white ceramic water bottle, a smooth bowl made from the wood of an ash tree, a stick lighter, and a good sized bundle of dried greens that were tucked away into a ziplock bag so that they wouldn't crumble all over the interior of her bag. Half the herbs were pulled from the bag and crumbled in her fist to fall into the bowl set central in front of her.
As she worked, the very air around her seemed to go still. Not just still, but taut, like the string of a bow being pulled and held with the potential to let loose at any time. Margot licked her lips and brought the stick lighter to life with flame, and spread the fire across the top of the loose dried bundle of green and yellow plant. Soon dense smoke twisted up from the bowl, and Margot leaned back. Her hands cupped loosely around the smoke like she was warming her hands on the embers within, or like she was trying to encourage them to grow...
[Summoning the ghost of a murder victim - Spirit 2] (WP!)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Ned
Ned didn't offer anything to Margot's reassurance. Not one for optimism he seemed intent on their surroundings, allowing Margot the chance to do what she needed to do, to prepare for the moment ahead. His face continued to hold that vague grimness, though the knife had yet to make an appearance beyond the slight flash of a sheath at his back.
Instead, Ned's questing gaze continues it's scanning movements, head canting from one moment to the next even as he double checks their surroundings with a swift mental and physical departure from reality. The essence Doc explained as 'Quint' floods out of him and into his gaze, hands locking around some inner tension, fists formed at his sides while Margot works.
(Forces 1 / Life 1 / Matter 1: Reality X-ray (Searching for objects, heat blooms and pulses in the immediate vicinity. Diff 4 - 1 for Quint)
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Echo
Ned is a sharp, astute sort of creature. Ned is also an observant sort- to the point that one could argue he was hyper vigilant- but that vigilance pays off and the world does as it will do. It is shoved aside and forced to render its secrets to Caesar. He reaches out and around, feels the heartbeat of a nearby deer. Some fish in the stream fleeing their presence. The only real heat coming to them is the heat held in the initiates' chests; he notices an odd lack of heat, really. A lack of others beyond themselves in this area because even now the doe is taking her leave of them.
All that is near them is the trees, the rocks, the natural. The only man made goods are those they brought with themselves. They are alone- save for this:
The dried greens in Margot's hands take the flame as a welcomed companion- they drink the warmth there and soon the when they are placed where they are intended there is a movement there. Dense smoke is plucked forth like the notes on a lyre as it twists and curls into the air. They say that there is something that needs to be cleansed when the smoke has something to grasp, and this smoke does grasp at the atmosphere around them.
She may look from her focus, from her ritual and see something move there- something in the smoke moves, like if Margot herself had pulled her hand through its coils. The movement is that of a magician's assistant, some kind of movement in the smoke to divert from what the other hand is doing but Margot Travers knows to look left when others point right. The smoke turns, braids, pulls to a thin line that reaches to hold-
Something.
It will take another pull to bring that something across.
Margot
Smoke twisted and curled in the air before her, thick and grabbing something in the air to show that it existed. Not wind, though-- the air was still, abnormally so with the lack of singing crickets and chirping birds overhead.
"You're there," she whispered quietly from the ground, speaking through the smoke to the Other Side to whatever was left of Jacqueline that she was trying to coax out-- hoping that it was Jacqueline at all. A hand dropped down and shook the bowl a little, tossing up the embers with the dried dandelion that it hadn't eaten yet and giving more oxygen to help fuel the burning as well. She licked her lips and focused on the smoke hard enough that she was looking into it, through it to the other side. The very image of the smoke reflected strong in her big eyes, taking mirroring lessons from the pond in front of them.
Fingers curled over the smoke again and moved in delicate motions, like she could tug the smoke to be more dense and strong, and then began to delicately pick it apart to help out whatever was Beyond.
[C'mon little spirit, I hear you in there. Extending.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ned
Ned's attention returned to the Ritual, satisfied they were mundanely alone in this affair, his eyes seeming to blink particles of quint away to waft into the returning fold of reality. He is apart from where Margot kneels, regarding the feathering smoke and coiling 'presence' that seemed to be hovering on the outskirts of where and whenever the 'Other side' could be found.
In this moment, his hand was around the length of leather wrapped handle, attached to the honed and sharpened hunting knife. A glance at Margot given, both quizzical and patient, even if all nerves were firing, all muscles tensed for a potential bombardment of something otherworldly they might not be expecting.
Echo
And in that moment the air grew thicker and in a space smaller than one would expect, the air is rent, torn, and pushed through is a woman who stands nearly as tall as Ned is but with possibly half the bodyweight. She is some fae creature, or perhaps not. Perhaps this is their dead woman- what with her large eyes (seemingly sightless, milky save for the single pinpoint of what may have been pupils) and her narrow nose and delicately sculpted brows. Her proportions are distinctly human and her attire is non-existent.
She finds herself nearly standing on top of Margot. Her brows knit together and she cocks her head to the side- all that blonde hair toppling to one side. The smoke has long since grown cold, and where she stands there is the crunch of frozen earth.
"... where is this?"
The voice doesn't come from her, but rather it is ambient and half-muffled, as though parts of her never made it past the gauntlet.
Margot
All at once Margot felt the air expand and contract simultaneously. Stillness and cold flooded over her and by the time she'd focused her eyes back outside of the smoke Margot realized that she was seeing a manifestation of legs right in front of her knees, thin and maybe slightly discolored, maybe still colored the deep gray-blue of the smoke or maybe still fleshy. She looked up and blinked and realized that the woman was blond and present and speaking with a voice that didn't entirely come across with her, and that she was naked.
Margot made a small noise of discomfort (of course, squeamish over the proximity of the dead woman's nudity as opposed to with the concept of death or any visibility of a bullet hole in the head [she hadn't checked that far yet]), and pushed herself back away from the woman's feet and scrambled up onto her own soon after. She didn't retreat immediately to Ned's side but cleared her throat, brushed her hands on the thighs of her jeans, and tried to ignore the flush of embarassment burning on her cheeks and ears.
"The mountains in north El Paso county," she answered, testing her voice with the fact and finding that it would be fine after she cleared her throat. The clearing-throat sound came, a glance back to Ned followed, and then she looked back to the woman (eyes now checking for that bullet wound in the scalp, curious if it were to appear there still or not).
"...Are you Miss Jacqueline Paix?"
Echo
There were no bullet wounds at all in this body. Her fingertips are bluing and her lips have no color but she is intact. Clean. Like she'd just stepped out of a shower and everything was fine there. Like she had never even been dead at all save for the fact that she feels like the frozen cosmos; she looks around and her lips press into a fine line.
Is she Miss Jacqueline Paix?
"Why am I here?"
So incredulous, this one. She walks away from the little witch and takes a stance where she can observe her surroundings and those near her, "why did you bring me here?"
Margot
Ned was hanging back a few feet, and when Margot looked back to find him a brief glance and understanding was exchanged. This was her ritual, her show and pony. Both of her cabalmates were useless when it came to Spirits (though only for now, she was sure). He would watch carefully and she would continue to serve as liason to the dead. Her mouth set in a grim line, but Margot turned to address the dead woman once more.
"To help." This was her answer to both questions, and though her voice was still quiet and almost pleading it did not quake or quiver. Much like the air when she'd summoned the spirit forward, she was and would remain steady. Hazel eyes followed along after the woman's trailing steps, and her hands rested at her sides with a conscious effort not to fidget while she communed with the woman's spirit.
"We're trying to stop people from being killed, because the police don't seem interested in or able to do so themselves. We might, though." The 'we' clearly being her and Ned. She paused, frowning at how to pose this next question without running the risk of sending the spirit flying into a fit.
"...It's cold here, before and after you arrived, Miss. Was it so cold when you were here last?"
Echo
"I haven't been this far down the creek in months, not since May," she said, though the times may not quite correspond. Her body was found in June.
"Not since Beltane with Evan and Odessa and Evelyn and..." she looks concerned again, as though she was trying to remember something and the details were just escaping her. She seems keen on pacing. Her attention flickers from the little witch to the smoke "-but we all went home after that. I met with clients the next morning, it wasn't cold at all... It hadn't been cold in weeks."
Ned
"...Last names of your friends? We;d,,,"
Ned clears his throat gently, trying to decide whether to lean on the Orderly training he'd accmulated over the years or simply gut-punch things into the reality that was unfolding at the moment. He'd opted for more comfort than control.
"...like to check with them as well and hopefully be able to piece together some details about what's going on...Some confusion all around it would seem..."
Margot
[Intelligence + Enigmas: C'mon, Brainy Kid, don't those names sound familiar? The word Beltane should definitely tip you off.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5) ( botch x 1 )
Margot
Margot cast a polite glance back to Ned while he asked about the last names. Margot didn't need surnames herself, though. The ones given tied to the word Beltane had her gears turning. They sounded familiar, they were significant in a Magickal sense, not just in the way that she may have read about them in newspaper articles.
"Odessa," she repeated quietly, more for herself than anyone else. Her brow furrowed as memories bled together and refused to be separated. Vampiric flesh molding? Or a Swan-Spirit, perhaps?
"But that doesn't make sense...."
She was left to quietly mutter under her breath, near-silent for how soft it was, while trying to sort her threads out in her mind. This would give Jacqueline time to answer Ned or tell him to fuck off.
Echo
"Evelyn Murray," she says, carefully. She seems to be regarding them with a great deal of scrutiny, as though she isn't entirely certain what to make of this particular experience or the fact that she is in the middle of an area that she hadn't been to in months, "Evan's always just been Evan and Odessa doesn't have a last name."
But it doesn't make sense-
"What is confusing. You're talking about people being murdered- who-" her voice hits a pin point, not originating from her but, instead, from the place where the smoke smoldered quietly still "-which murders are you talking about?"
As though there were more.
Ned
Ned takes the name and sets it aside somewhere in the compartments of his mind. Something to investigate later or at least hand over to Grace so she could do her techno-thing. For now though, his brow knit together tempted to hand things back over to Margot before the young witch seemed to wander off into her memories and thoughts for a second, sourcing out details that...refused to untangle themselves. It left Ned with an eyeful of expectant ghost.
"Do the words Peregrine or Wiley mean anything to you?"
Echo
"Peregrine is a rank," she explained, "in the Fraternal Order of the Falcon. Like how the masons have their degrees and secrets, they have theirs. It's an honor to be part of that."
She seems to take her time to muse over the second part. Wiley-
"Like the Coyote?"
Ned
""That's wily, but yeah. This one's with an E. W.I.L.E.Y. The nickname of someone we found. Apparently, he got into this order." Ned offered with a vague smile that suggested 'Lucky fellow, right?'
"A brotherhood. Gentleman's club?" Ned draws closer to the ghost, his interest suddenly piqued at the mention of some order or other. That would no doubt gain some hits and attention from a few bodies and minds among them, though a small part of him was trying not to think about another 'Order' in the Mage community this could be attached to.
"So this order accepts people into it. Honourable types? Do they have a purpose? Protective of Falcons? Wilderness and Environmentalist group?" Ned's half-hearted joke was meant more toward alleviating the sudden dread creeping into his system. He did his best to remain relatively deadpan and settled.
Margot
"But wait..."
Margot cut in finally. She'd missed out on the majority of the conversation surrounding the Fraternal Order of Falcons and this Wiley person, still stuck with zero traction while gears in her mind whirled around the names Evan Evelyn and Odessa-- Odessa being the drain that her mind kept circling around in particular, unsure of whether it wanted to land on 'Vampire' or 'Swan'. She'd blinked and given her head a little shake when finally coming back to reality. She'd just have to give up on that particular train of thought for now.
"What's the last thing that you remember? As a whole, I mean, Miss Paix? If you weren't here since May, if you remember clients, then there's something missing between the last time you were here and when you... ended up here last."
Echo
"Somewhere between a hunting lodge and a gentlemen's club. Some of the men in the lower levels take lessons with me-" took lessons with her, but she doesn't dwell on it "-they donate to the NRA and anti-fracking groups, so there's that? One of my clients told me that the only way you get to the higher echelons of the organization is a successful and dangerous hunt."
But what did she remember. What could she say about all of this? Her head turned and... what did she remember. What were her last moments that she placed and-
The air grows terribly cold for a flash and she, dead thing, stops.
"I can't tell you that."
Ned
"...ok. That's ok."
Ned offers a moment of reassurance, regarding the ghost and moving into her peripheral when she turns on Margot with a cold front sweeping in. The orderly training pulls his hands up, showing them to her with a careful sort of 'calm down' ease, that has them fall away slowly while he speaks.
"How about you tell me what sort of lessons you taught these men? You must have been important if they allowed you access to their members. What did they have to hunt for anyway? Dangerous hunt sounds like a grizzly maybe? Or a wolf?"
Margot
An order of brothers, possibly tied in to Magick, but definitely shady. The best way to get to the higher levels was to perform a special hunt. At that reveal, Margot was furrowing her brow. She was already focused on that instead of waiting with baited breath for the answer to her question-- the what happened?. It was fine all the same, for the dead woman couldn't reveal any answers to her anyways. The sudden strengthening of cold's grip in the air was not missed, though. Margot's skin tightened and she shivered.
It was while she was untying her flannel that Ned caught her eye. The gesture had her scowling at him briefly, insult flashing across her face before immediatey conceding to agreement. She was picking up what he was putting down, and was quiet while she pulled her arms through the sleeves of her flannel.
While she was buttoning the buttons, though, after Ned mused about the hunt, Margot did pipe up with one add-in:
"Or people. Hence the murder victims."
Echo
"I still don't know which murders you are talking about," she snapped, "who else died? Who else do you know died- you can't push this and I can't help you if you can't tell me who died."
She straightened, tall and strong and defiant and alive in the way that the dead should never really be. She is aware of the cold, it makes her look around and-
"Yes, like wild boars with a pocket knife or something like that- I haven't heard of much else. Evan is the one who told me about the hunting, she would know more."
Ned
"La Croix." Ned butchers the french pronunciation. Doesn't even try. "Laura Fairbanks." He states the names with obviousness. No guile or misdirection this time. His gaze travels to Margot, brow perked as if in
Ned
^question.
Anyone else?
Margot
Eyes hopped to Margot to ask if there were other names that were missing. Margot listened to the names that Ned had provided and nodded, picking up where he'd left off and looking to the woman that she'd summoned. She was built slim, this Jacqueline, but there's a power that all spirits held within and perhaps that was what helped make her seem so impressive when she was drawn tall and taut like that. Or maybe that was just the way she was in life. She spoke of Beltane, of names that rang bells of magickal significance and familiarity, she taught classes to a Brotherhood of Birds. There was power in knowledge and Magick and that could manifest afterlife as well.
"There's been a body found each month so far. Fairbanks was in the Colorado Springs suburbs, found in April. Then in May they found Chet St. Croiz near Pike's Peak."
Margot paused and her mouth twisted uncomfortably. This was the part she was worried about. Certainly the woman knew, but... to say it... well...
"A woman found you here. In June." She gestured to the area around them vaguely with her hand, palm up and fingers relaxed out. To her credit, her tone was gentle and sympathetic, a Funeral Voice if there was one. "The circumstances surrounding each murder were suspicious, increasingly so, down to you."
"....they haven't reported any other similar findings since then, and it's September now."
Echo
"La Croix was a Falcon- new guy, new money- but... Who is Laura Fairbanks?"
She looked genuinely confused, pinpoint pupils blow out to something that makes her seem almost human, almost alive for a moment. She walks and the ground takes the barest bits of ice with it, the ground thaws when she leaves.
The ghost looks down, pauses-
"If you're finding bodies, it's not the murders you should be worried about-" she moves past the sentiment quickly "who found me?"
Ned
"Evelyn did." He offers it without much in the way of thought. Throwing the name out with the familiairity that suggests Jackie knows which Evelyn. If only to see what sort of reaction that might bring.
Once again, Ned's hand is behind his back, carefully fingering the knife handle.
"...So we know that each of them was gifted. We know at least one of them was part of the Order and you Ms. Paix...were at least connected to them, through teaching methods?" Another little aside left there for if the Ghost felt inclined to answer.
"Seems like an in house problem though. Especially given we're supposed to be worried about....not the murders...I find it hard to believe there's something of higher priority than the murders right now..."
Margot
The ghostly Ms. Paix's wandering drew notice to the fact that the cold seemed to be permeating from her directly-- it followed her through each step, the ground thawing after she moved on listlessly to another part of the bank, but never wandering far from the witch and crafter who summoned her. A trailing thought-- the cause of death was the cold, and it had followed her beyond the grave. That felt significant, but the warning that she gave (don't worry about the murders) distracted her from it (for now).
She'd glanced to Ned, then folded her arms uncomfortably across her chest. The dandelion smoldered down toward ash in the bowl crafted from the tree of the name, but smoke still drifted dutiful to keep the worlds drawn together for the exchange.
"They were all apprenticed in Magick....," Margot almost whispered this, it could almost have been missed if the place weren't so supernaturally quiet already. Her eyes had been unfocused with the thought, drifting near ground level as she'd listened and pondered, but now they lifted up to focus upon the tall and surprisingly calm spectre. They were wide.
"They're only targeting Magick. You... you died of hypothermia, Jacqueline. Was that your resonance? Cold?"
Echo
Was that your resonance? Margot asked,Cold?
"Placid." the ghost replies.
She died of hypothermia, she says-
"It's too warm for that-" she says swift and ready "-I-"
This was when there was a moment to perhaps test the placid nature that this creature had told them she possessed in life. And yes, how it would be tested because the dead were creatures of roaring passions, it was what fueled them. It was that which kept their forms together and she was no different and at that moment she was beginning to feel the effects of despair, and her fists clenched and she stepped away from the two young mages, Hands go up to hold the sides of her head.
"-I saw Evelyn before I was- I went to her, I'd found out that-" which was when her eyes went dark, black and bottomless. Fathomless and abyssal- "NO."
The leaves shake with this, the air stirs and her form flickers brighter than it would before fading back ethereal- barely here.
"I can't tell again, I will not- this is not my secret, I remember! I. Am. No. Thief."
Ned
"Send her back, Margot."
Ned's voice is low, as if he were attempting not to draw the ghost's attention, ire or regard suddenly. His gaze doesn't travel quickly at the younger mage, merely glances at her out of the corner of his eye.
Margot
Truth be told, Margot was surprised that this conversation had been going so well. Jacqueline explained that her resonance was not cold, but placid, and perhaps that contributed to the experience going so smooth as it had thus far. But again she brushed up against the memory of the moment of her death, and each time before she had shied away from it. This time, however, something snapped and a sudden rage arose.
Margot went stiff in spine and muscles, and her toes gripped at her boots. Her arms stayed folded across her chest (steady), but they tightened about her ribcage and her eyes had gone wide. The ghost was shouting about protecting a secret that wasn't hers because she wasn't going to steal anything and it was a secret that she had found out when Evelyn... this Evelyn...
Send her back, urged Ned.
Those big eyes hopped over to Ned when he whispered to her, but panic didn't cling to the edges of them. She didn't need to turn her head too severely to see him, there was no dramatic whipping of the head to be seen. She considered this suggestion, then looked back to the ghost who flickered near-etheral, near-gone, whose hands were up over her head. She spoke soft and steady as before.
"You're not. I won't ask you to be either. You've helped us a lot, Jacqueline, you have our thanks."
Echo
"She knew," the spirit said, with her voice so terribly heartbroken, the kind of heartbreak that can only fuel the purest of rage. The kind of betrayal that hurts to its core, Jacqueline closed her eyes tightly "I told Evelyn about them all and she knew- I didn't know I'd promised- I didn't remember-you have to believe me!" she wailed.
Margot could have sent her back, could have been ready to give the ghost back to her plane but the air was so cold, so frightfully cold. There is the feeling, perhaps for that moment, that maybe something was amiss. The cold that came with her, the dreadful, oppressive cold that had not lifted gave way and the shadows converged for a moment upon where the ghost had been standing.
The ghost shrieked again when some thin, alabaster hand seemed to come through the shroud, grasped her shoulder and then pulled. Limbs graceful and willowy, and the barest strands of gossamer thread hair seemed to come together, as if Jacqueline and some other, more ancient being were attempting to merge. Whern she speaks again it is the voice of a chorus-
"Know that your word is your bond, children, and woe to those who would dare steal from the spirits that which is theirs. This is the wisdom of the Keeper of Secrets."
And with that, she is gone. Both she and whatever had been with her this time are away, and the silence and the cold and the stillness of the area seems to begin to bleed away- the earth itself releasing its breath to relieve the tension.
Echo
"She knew," the spirit said, with her voice so terribly heartbroken, the kind of heartbreak that can only fuel the purest of rage. The kind of betrayal that hurts to its core, Jacqueline closed her eyes tightly "I told Evelyn about them all and she knew- I didn't know I'd promised- I didn't remember-you have to believe me!" she wailed.
Margot could have sent her back, could have been ready to give the ghost back to her plane but the air was so cold, so frightfully cold. There is the feeling, perhaps for that moment, that maybe something was amiss. The cold that came with her, the dreadful, oppressive cold that had not lifted gave way and the shadows converged for a moment upon where the ghost had been standing.
The ghost shrieked again when some thin, alabaster hand seemed to come through the shroud, grasped her shoulder and then pulled. Limbs graceful and willowy, and the barest strands of gossamer thread hair seemed to come together, as if Jacqueline and some other, more ancient being were attempting to merge. Whern she speaks again it is the voice of a chorus-
"Know that your word is your bond, children, and woe to those who would dare steal from the spirits that which is theirs. This is the wisdom of the Keeper of Secrets."
And with that, she is gone. Both she and whatever had been with her this time are away, and the silence and the cold and the stillness of the area seems to begin to bleed away- the earth itself releasing its breath to relieve the tension.
Ned
The knife is out.
Ned's attention is latching onto that alabaster limb punching through from the other side and the ghostly voices that suddenly rise to collect in the vicinity. His mind is pieecing things together into some format, even as he is witnessing events quick wits formulating thoughts and ideas even as they are happening.
Because really? It's all he can do. All he has access to at the moment.
There is a merging. The cold is batted aside like some errant child, crushed and delivered into a shadowy presence that sweeps up Jac
Ned
queline and Ned is watching. Sympathetic? Empathetic? Or merely a witness. One would be hard pressed to decipher which based solely on his protective stance and the deadpan on his face.
When it all goes still ad silent, he is the same for a few moments. Then: turning to Margot, slowly, carefully he sucks in a deep and slow breath and releases it with the same controlled ease.
"We've got a lot of information. I have some thoughts but nothing concrete and we need to know a lot more before any of it will shake out. For now though? We need to get the fuck out of here."
Ned
(Wits 4 + Awareness 2)
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Margot
[Wits 3 + Awareness 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )
Margot
"I do!" Margot was calling back to the ghost now, insisting belief. She felt for the woman, something about the righteousness of rage stoked by betrayal called to the Goddess that she could feel in her bones. There was more reassurance that she wanted to offer to the woman, she wanted her guided back to the other side peacably, but soon the area made thin by Margot's smoke summons and the lack of the city's choking nature was pushed through by something else. The hand seized Jacqueline by the shoulder and a small startled and fearful sound strangled its way out of Margot's throat. Her arms finally unfolded only to allow her hands to clasp over her mouth as she watched what transpired with wide eyes.
When the cold and the hand and the warning had faded away and quiet returned, Ned finally turned to face Margot and she turned her head slowly to look at him. Hands slowly lowered from her mouth but her eyes were still wide. He'd taken a breath to calm himself but she didn't do the same. Rather, she looked back to the spot on the pond shore where the ghost had been pulled back where she belongs.
"There's no danger here," she said, and though the tone wasn't reassuring the message was supposed to be. "What we saw... It's not..." She didn't finish, but shook her head and concluded differently instead. "Well, let's say I'm keeping that warning close."
She went back to the bowl of dandelion ash and knelt down to clean up. The ash was tipped into the pond itself, the bowl rinsed with the water from the bottle she'd brought and scrubbed carefully with bare fingertips then dried on the hem of her shirt. Supplies packed away she shouldered her backpack and rose, waited for Ned, and when he seemed ready she started a comfortably-paced walk back toward the car.
[[ End Scene: Not seen on camera, the car drive back hashing out theories on what's going on. Tune in next time for Getting Home and Filling Doc In! ]]
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