No infringement intended. Possible triggers for self-harm and abuse.
Mara knelt on the ground, her mother's arm over her shoulder. There was blinding light and powerful wind.
When the dust settled, Mara looked to the over, bewildered to see another body still on Charlotte's other side. Mara crawled over to the other her, shaking her by the shoulders. She wasn't responding.
Great, now Mara would have to actually talk to her.
"Audrey? Audrey! Snap out of it!"
The washed out blonde opened her eyes and a dry, rasping cough tore through her. Duke and Nathan came running and Mara began a personal internal diagnostic as she gently let Nathan take Audrey from her.
"What happened?" Mara barked at Charlotte. "What did you do?"
"I- I tried to combine you, to put her back inside you!"
Mara's results hit her brain, and she took the most important facts, leaving the rest for later scrutiny.
"Liar. That was never your intention. You tried to kill me and give Audrey my abilities! You know what that would have done to ths town! You'd have left them trapped like they're in a bottle!"
"What do you mean?" Nathan asked.
Mara was tempted to look heavenward for flying pigs. Nathan had asked her a question and she was actually going to answer him.
"If I die, Haven gets ripped out of this world, stuck in between worlds. A town in a bottle, trapped mid-Void. Nobody in, nobody out. It's like a total eclipse, she must have thought it was her lucky day- having a genetically ideal copy of me to download my abilities into. A more willing host, someone who doesn't have our history."
"That's ridiculous. I need to examine Audrey."
Mara scrambled between the two women, snarling at Charlotte. "If you try to touch her I swear I will kill you here and now. Get out of here, Momma. Walk away now and you can go with your life. I doubt William would give you the same option."
Charlotte eyed Mara for a moment with undisguised loathing. "This isn't over. You'll beg me for help."
"For your case, you should hope this is over. You won't walk away a second time."
Charlotte glared, clambering to her feet. She opened her mouth and Mara stood, tense and ready.
Charlotte ran.
Mara turned back to Audrey, examining her. There was a chance... she took Audrey's hand, carefully pushing the smallest bit of her own Aether into the fading blonde. Her cough settled immediately and her color got visibly better.
"Okay, I can help her, but you need to get her somewhere she can rest, I won't do this here on the ground. Hell, take her to the Rouge. It's something you can defend and she can safely rest. I'll meet you there. Please, I swear I will explain everything, but get her somewhere first." Nathan quickly lifted Audrey and sprinted for the Bronco.
"Whoa, wait! What about me? What's going to happen to me?" Duke was talking with his hands again, and Mara was surprised he didn't accidentally hit people more often.
"You're fine, nothing will happen. You won't go off unless something happens to me. I'll explain everything when we get there, but I don't want to do this here." She stood up and dusted her clothes off, leading the way to the Land Rover.
Inside, she pressed her face against the glass.
"What happened, Mara?"
"She tried to kill me and give Audrey my body- or more specifically, my abilities. She failed."
"Why did it fail?"
"She couldn't disperse me because I'm not alone. Apparently I'm pregnant."
Duke hit the brakes so hard she flew into her seat belt.
"Un-fucking-believable! I sleep with you all of once and you're somehow carrying my demon spawn?"
"Twice, technically, and you slept nowhere near me. You may not like me, but I'm not a demon. I'm asking you for nothing. I don't need you to like me or take care of me. Or the 'demon spawn'. I didn't even know until after she failed! We're only a few minutes from the boat, let me fix her and finish your cure and then you can drop my stuff off for me. I promise you I will only touch you once more, to finish your cure, and then you're rid of me. Go, Duke. Audrey won't stay well."
He muttered, but they were moving forward again.
Mara jumped out of the Land Rover before it had even stopped completely, getting into the boat before Duke. Nathan must have unlocked it- they had beaten Duke and Mara because of Duke's roadside tantrum. At least that saved them sitting through a tense silence as they waited.
Mara look carefully at Audrey, giving her a general once-over. "You'll be fine, I'll be able to fix you by the end of the evening. Just take it easy."
Audrey nodded, expression uncertain.
Nathan was staring at her. "You said you'd explain?"
She flopped back in a chair, one hand absently rubbing her abdomen. Her eyes were far away, staring into the distant past.
"You all know the stories. Every 27 years I come back, and the Troubles come at the same time. That I help Troubled people, and when the Barn comes, I go, taking the Troubles with me. Yet somehow people are still happy to see me. Did you ever ask yourselves why? If the Troubles come when I do, they should dread my return. But I can tell you exactly why. Because the things that come when I'm not here are worse. Sure, the Troubles come when I do. But you know what stays away while I'm here? The rest of my family. The minute I'm gone? You guys are back to experiments and memory aleration. You don't even know to be afraid.
"Where I come from, some people are born with unusual abilities- or disabilities, depending on the situation. My mother isn't gifted- the only reason she can cross the Void at all anymore is because of the ring she had us make her. Anyway, she started training us here when we were very young- toddlers, by your estimation. My twin and I. Our education consisted of learning how to use Aether against people. " She twirled her free hand over her head, gesturing at the whole town. "All these Troubles? Most were done before I even turned 10."
She gazed at them calmly. "Any of you do things you regretted when you were 10? No? Sleds, tacks, scissors. Yeah, I know your terrible secrets. All those Troubles out there? Those are mine. We're even."
She tapped her nails on the arm of the chair with her free hand. "My brother and I, we'd get dropped off here to do our work. Eventually, this boy- Samuel. Damn, he was so funny. He used to be waiting for us- me and my brother- and he was either the sneakiest boy who ever lived or he was the kindest. I still can't tell which. He would be there waiting and he always made up the funniest stories about us. That we were magic or spirits or angels. He started telling us about humans. I don't know if he even understood what he was doing, but he talked us into not giving out Troubles anymore. Convinced us that humans were worthwhile. No matter how badly people treated him, he was always there, always willing to help.
"We tried. We tried everything. But we weren't able to remove Troubles. So Samuel, gods rest him, he said 'fight fire with fire'. He figured if we couldn't directly remove Aether, we should make a Trouble that could. He volunteered. So yeah, Duke. That Trouble running through you? I made that. My brother couldn't. He had abilities, but he had to work with me to accomplish much. I was the only one who was able to give Troubles."
She idly traced shapes on her belly. "Samuel. I hadn't given a Trouble in months, but it worked. My brother and I went with him, and I don't know- maybe I screwed it up, maybe he just enjoyed the blood-rush too much. He wouldn't release the Aether, and so the only way to extract all the Aether was to kill the Troubled person. I tried to fix him, but, as I said, I can't remove Troubles. I couldn't fix him. He blamed me for making him a killer, and we lost our only human friend."
She slapped her hands down on the arm of the chair, leaning toward them and resting her elbows on her knees. "So, we made a show of it for awhile, and I started repairing Troubles, trying to at least make them safer if I couldn't get rid of them. At first, my brother helped me." Her expression was a mix of affection and anger. "Soon enough, though, my mother realized there weren't enough new Troubles. To protect me, my brother started adjusting the Troubles of people we'd gotten previously, then he started making gifts- good things- turn bad. Adjusting the gifts I'd given. At some point, he got tired of it. He brought Momma through, she saw me correcting a broken gift- he said "See, I told you!" and that was my last memory as a free being, The Barn, the personalities, the meteors, and here we all are again."
She stood, loudly slapping her thighs as she did. "So my mother finds out the Barn is gone and comes looking. Finds her dream come true. My exact double, but without my history. The guy she's in love with and the ability to lock the entire town up- she knew killing me would move the town into the Void, she's the one who made it that way in the first place. All she'd have to do is threaten to hurt Nathan and BAM! Mara 2.0."
She felt the stir, the call of the Aether waking within Duke. She turned to face him, and she had to really try this time to keep her expression neutral. "It's time, Duke. Time to do the last part of your cure. I told you I'd have to touch you. After this, I can help her, and then I'm out. I'll get my things from here and the boat house and you can go about your business." She dug her fingers into the skin of her arm. She felt unusually anxious.
He was staring at her with an inscrutable look on his face. Silver flashed briefly across his eyes as the Aether woke within him. "What do I have to do?" His voice was sullen, body language closed off. Mara wanted to cry for a moment, but dug her nails in further.
"There are several ways, but most involve more touching than you'd be comfortable with." Kissing, she thought to herself. "I suppose we can get by with just touching our hands together and standing very close. Just- here, before it kicks in, just face me and press your palms against mine." She moved him into position, as close as she could stand without actually touching his body. Their hands stayed pressed together as Duke started to shiver.
"Duke, don't fight it, it will only make it harder. Try to relax as much as you can. You just have to let go of the rest of the Aether stored in you. I won't let it turn into Troubles, but you need to let go so you don't end up like Samuel. Come on, Duke. The sooner you get it out the sooner I'm out of your life. What more motivation do you need?"
Her voice was sharper than she intended, her hurt showing. But it was enough to flip his eyes silver, and Mara braced herself, opening her mouth in preparation.
Black fog began to billow from Duke's mouth and eyes, and Mara leaned close so she could breath it in directly. No sense making a spectacle. She absorbed every drop, every single bit that would have caused a terrible, malprogrammed Trouble if Mara hadn't been there for it to be expelled. Even blind and drowning, she wondered what this would have been like if he'd been making love to her instead of standing, barely touching her, hating her and the baby she'd conceived by him. Mara cried internally for Duke and for that baby. How unfair that he should hate his child just because Mara was the one carrying it. Her eggs were genetically no different than Audrey's.
She was sure he wouldn't hate this baby or call it demon-spawn if Audrey had been the pregnant one.
Mara was just starting to be truly worried about suffocation when Duke's muscles went slack. It took another second for Mara to take in the last of the Aether, and she closed her eyes, regretfully pulling her hands away from Duke's. But she had promised. Last touch.
Time to do her last job here so she could collect her meager belongings and find somewhere to hide. She couldn't leave Haven even if she wanted to- she was literally bound to the town. But she could find plenty of little holes to lay low. They may not have cable TV and popsicles, but they would do.
Her hand was on her belly again as she spoke to Duke while turning to Audrey. "If I have any of my things here, will you please throw them in a plastic bag for me?"
Kneeling before Audrey, Mara couldn't help but stare. Why was she so different? Mara had been trying to atone for hundreds of years, not just the 500 she was locked in the barn for. Hell, she'd been locked up simply because she was trying to atone, but it didn't matter. They loved her.
But Mara didn't need love. Mourning the fact that Duke was disgusted by her pregnancy was as pointless as crying about the fact that her twin no longer loved her. She didn't need these people- when you let people in, you got hurt. It was a simple fact.
She realized with a start that there was blood on her hands. Her own, from the look of it. She'd scratched her arms too hard. Something felt off about that- Mara had been hurting herself rather a lot lately, and that alone was unlike her. She'd have to fully review the diagnostic soon to make sure there was nothing else wrong with her. She wiped her hands on her pants before she reached out to touch Audrey.
It wasn't surprising that she'd gotten sick. The Trouble Duke had expelled to part her from Mara was designed for humans. It couldn't handle her- their- physiology. She used the Aether inside her, that massive overload from Duke directly from her body, not bothering to return the Aether to dormancy and re-activating it. It was clean, there was no point wasting the time. She did a thorough job but didn't drag it out, repairing Audrey as quickly as she could. The anxiety was getting worse, she felt caged.
The moment she felt the Aether finish the corrections inside Audrey, Mara stood. She was torn between standing in the corner and just leaving.
But of course, they had questions.
She walked around as they started asking, finally sitting in a chair, holding Duke's knife hidden in her hand. She just wanted to feel the cool metal.
"I- I'm well. You cured me."
Mara nodded absently, barely listening as Nathan pointed out that he could feel her again. She pressed the knife edge against the palm of her hand, watching for the exact moment where blade broke skin. Tiny movements. How lovely the crimson looked against her white skin.
"Who is your brother, Mara?" Oh, Audrey. Silly questions that just didn't matter.
"William. William is my twin."
The looks on their faces were almost comical.
Nathan looked like he was trying to solve a difficult puzzle. "But when he said you were connected, I thought he mean- romantically."
Mara shrugged, bored with the subject. Romance and love were comedy for the gods. "He did. Where I come from, consanguinity- incest- isn't taboo. Our genes work differently. Gifts tend to become stronger through interbreeding, not weak and damaged like humans. No, my life story was set from birth. The moment Momma knew that she'd had gifted twins? She bound us instantly. I was to marry him eventually. Would have, if things hadn't happened as they did. If I'd either done as my mother wanted or if he'd stayed with me to help instead of turning me in. Not that it matters."
That was one decent difference between them and most humans... though technically, Audrey was no more human than Mara... they didn't get as antsy and puritanical. They wouldn't be up all night thinking how weird it was for twins to marry. They saw enough weirdness every day.
Duke must have been surprised out of his snit. "Why were you trying to get him back, then?"
"When he came to the Barn this time, he acted like he was trying to make up. Like he still loved me. He was my twin and I loved him. I wanted to see if he'd changed, if he was fixable. Hell, I didn't know if he'd done the horrible things because he was cruel or if he was desperate to wake me up. It doesn't matter now. Momma came back, and that means William is probably still in her pocket. It was blind optimism."
A long, shallow slice against the skin of her wrist. Not deep. Just enough to feel, to push the horrible anxiety and discomfort away.
Audrey was staring at her, flecks of shining blue blazing across her eyes occasionally. She tilted her head. "Mara? Are you... bleeding?"
Mara jerked her head up to stare at Audrey. "Why do you ask that?"
"I- I keep having a strange feeling and when I look at you, it just- everything looks strange. Like you're leaking."
"I'm fine."
Duke narrowed his eyes, striding toward Mara and jerking her hands up from where they were hidden in her lap. "Mara, what did you do?" He sounded horrified and she glared.
"It doesn't matter. I'm here to answer your questions and then I'm done anyway."
He snatched his knife from her and she ached to reach out for it again. "Look, if you don't have any more questions for right now, I'm leaving."
"No, no way." Duke said immediately.
Mara glared. "Why? What now? Are we still playing prison? What the hell are you hoping to get out of me now? Unless you're planning to call the Guard. If you are, be decent and say so. They can torture and kill me, whatever- it'll shove this town into the Void just as surely as Momma would have. But it's not just me, and I will not let them keep and torture my child. If I'm going to die, it's not going to be that way!"
"What child, Mara?" Audrey asked quietly.
"I'm pregnant. I found out right after Momma tried to kill me."
Nathan and Audrey looked stunned, and Duke- she really couldn't place the look he was giving her. It had bits of a lot of things, but didn't seem to fit anything exactly.
"Is that why you didn't die when Charlotte tried to kill you?" Nathan actually look a little sad for her. That was unexpected. The piece of her that still loved him- had always loved him- wished he would hug her. Such a foolish wish, and yet she had it every time she saw him. She wished she could talk to him without all the fear and animosity, so she could deal with the unresolved feelings she had about their son. Theirs. Not his and Audrey's.
"Yeah. Yes, that is why I didn't die when I should have."
Audrey spoke up again. "Mara, please tell me why you're bleeding."
"I don't know, okay? I don't feel right. The only thing that makes it stop is pain. The knife was the best option."
Audrey stared at Mara intently. "You've never hurt yourself before, I remember. When did you start hurting yourself?"
"A couple of days ago. It's not a big deal."
Duke gave her another searching look. "Is that why the toe, Mara? Were you wanting to hurt then?"
"Yes, but it doesn't matter! It doesn't make a damned bit of difference. I'm not your prisoner, and I fixed you both, as agreed. I have somewhere to go."
"Where, Mara?" Audrey's voice was quiet.
"Anywhere that doesn't hurt."
Mara ran for the door and out, disappearing before they could catch her.