A/N: Mostly setup, a lot of deus ex machina, but I have to have the basis down before I can get to the actual storytelling. Sucks, don't it? Massive amounts of thanks to my beta readers Tewson, Elly, and Eliza (yes, that Eliza), who nitpicked the nits that needed it. This fic also marks my very first submission to ff.net in HTML rather than text, so there's actually italics instead of my usual convention of asterisks. Please note, I have used italics for spells, emphasis, thoughts, and all such. I like italics. I wrote this story for fun and because I've been threatening to for roughly six months now. This is not, repeat not, one of my fics with a deep meaning. Read, review, enjoy if it suits you!
"Gilderoy? Is there something you'd like to add to this session?" As always, the Cheerful One was smiling vacuously.
I rolled my eyes. There's something infuriating about people who are cheerful all the time. I'm a good-natured person myself (tend not to get angry and all that), but all the same there's just something wrong with people who never seem to be in a bad mood... in more whimsical times I wonder whether what I saw actually was a bad mood, in which case I wondered how cavity-inducing true cheerfulness would have been. He, of course, didn't notice my annoyance (I never took part in therapy sessions, as a preservative to what mental structure I had managed to recover), so I smiled sweetly (something I am frighteningly good at) and answered, "I'd like to add that Marie needs to change his lipstick color. Orange on orange is tacky beyond belief."
Marie never answered to anything but Marie, unless it was Votre Majesté, which of course no one ever used. He was firmly convinced that he was Marie-Antoinette, the Queen of France who was decapitated (such a fun word, that!) during the Revolution. Not the reincarnation of her, mind, (that would have put him as practically normal by American terms) but actually her. Never mind the gender issues, and never mind that the thing he insisted was his severed head was actually a basketball with a wig and badly applied makeup. Supposedly, he was working through his identity issues, but in the meantime he had a shocking lack of taste, which was distracting me from my attempt at completely ignoring him.
Marie (whose real name, I think, was Jonathan) scowled at me and shifted the basketball on his lap self-consciously. I smiled even more sweetly; the only purpose to speaking out in therapy was to 'help' our fellow group-members. And orange lipstick is tacky.
The Cheerful One (known in my less amiable moods as the Oppressively Cheerful Doctor, but usually just the Cheerful One) pursed his lips thoughtfully, the closest thing I ever saw to a frown of disapproval. But he rallied and said, "Well, then, what color do you think would be appropriate?"
Oh no. Now I was supposed to have a conversation about a basketball's lipstick in group therapy. Well, I'd done it to myself, hadn't I, so I just shrugged. "Not orange."
"Orange matches my ensemble today," Marie said huffily. " I do not appreciate having my fashion sense mocked by a commoner."
"Gil's right, you know, Marie," Amy put in kindly. "Maybe if you tried something less showy, like an autumn brown, or something."
Marie scowled harder, hunching down in his chair. The conversation veered off of lipstick and into posture.
Amy was the other sane person in the room, though unlike me she actually participated in therapy sessions. She was a witch, certainly, but one without control of the spells she knew. (Quite different from my own problem of not knowing any spells.) It certainly made mealtimes interesting… she usually had to beg her food to stay food long enough for her to eat it. Personally, I thought it was a medical (chemical) problem rather than a psychological one, but I'm not an expert. I just felt sorry for her. I did have a mental problem (amnesia; where have you been?), which I suppose is the difference; I, (though sane) did belong, where she did not.
The others in group tended to go their own way, meaning therapy never went anywhere in spite of the best intentions of the Cheerful One. Carl never said anything, but then he had been an orderly once and didn't have to. His presence spoke volumes, and generally those volumes dealt with exercises and how to subdue unruly patients. I generally steered clear of Carl. Brenda was talkative, and she and Amy had a fierce rivalry; Brenda insisted she was a witch and generally claimed Amy's mishaps as her own doing, neither of which was the truth. The last member of group was called Bob, although he never spoke to anyone. He was a suicidal… I think. He spent all his time (except when he was sleeping) banging his head against walls, doors, chairs, floors, trees, cars, Carl, anything that presented itself. I think he was trying to kill himself with blunt force trauma, but simply couldn't get around his self-preservation imperative. According to the Cheerful One, he'd made "enormous progress" just getting to the point of beating his head on things.
All of us were guests (read "prisoners") of a psychiatric hospital (read "loony bin") called the Halfway House (motto: "We'll take you the rest of the way." Make of that what you will) in the state of Florida… the southern part of Florida, to be more specific. The Halfway House was small, as psychiatric hospitals go, consisting of approximately twenty patients, one doctor (the Cheerful One) and one orderly/nurse hereafter referred to as the Demonic Orderly. Since the patient-to-doctor ratio was so high, there were no personal therapy sessions, just group sessions that go on and on and on endlessly. Needless to say, no one ever actually gets any better there, in spite of the fact that people check in and out with astonishing frequency.
"Now, I want you all to remember that we have a day trip to the Everglades tomorrow," the Oppressively Cheerful one chirped. "So you all need to be on your very very best behavior-"
I raised my hand. Just a little wave, really, but that was the 'nice' way of asking for attention. For some reason, just talking when I had something to say wasn't an acceptable method of getting attention.
"Yes, Gilderoy?"
"I have already said several times that I don't want to go."
"It will be educational."
"There are bugs. And alligators-"
"You're never going to get over these ridiculous fears of yours if you don't confront them head on…." The Cheerful One's smile was growing increasingly more edged.
"I'd just as soon not confront an alligator head on, anyway. Have you seen their teeth?"
"Oh, come on," Brenda scoffed. "You're just coming up with things to be scared of on principle."
"It'll give us a chance to commune with nature," Amy said rapturously. Amy loved Nature, even when it was trying to eat her. "Give us a chance to explore our relationships."
"Relationships?" I echoed. "With what? With bugs? And alligators? And scampering vermin?"
"No, Gil! With each other! It'll reinforce our group identity!"
We are completely out of our minds, ask us how? Not the sort of reinforcement I needed, thank you. "I'll take the scampering vermin, thanks ever so."
I never really had a choice in the matter; it had been decided that we would all go, so that was how I found myself valiantly attempting to appreciate Nature in all her myriad forms, several of which were attempting to suck my blood while I swatted at them. (Bob was, of course, on a leash and being led around by the Demonic Orderly so he wouldn't get lost while he banged his head on a tree. With the leash, he got the chance to make his mark on all the local flora.) Amy, closely followed by Brenda, wandered around, ooh-ing and aah-ing over the shrubbery, and Marie had somehow managed to convince Carl to carry a parasol over his basketball, like some sort of bizarre, oversized footman. I was quite happy to pretend I wasn't with them.
This course of action, however, had one serious drawback that didn't occur to me until about half an hour after I started to ignore the rest of the group. I have all the sense of direction of a mud puddle, and the Demonic Orderly had the only map. In short order I was very, very lost. None of the trees had Bob's head indentation in them, and the sounds of female appreciation of nature were completely absent. On the one hand, this was a relief, as it was much easier to ignore them when they weren't present. On the other, I had absolutely no idea where they were. Contrary to popular opinion, being lost is not a case of not knowing where you are, it's a case of knowing where you're not.
So, I was lost. And what's more I was lost in a place which was much more than vaguely frightening to me. Yes, I scare easily. Get over it.
After about half an hour, I was firmly convinced that the entire landscape was against me. Have I mentioned I tend slightly to the paranoid? I'd want to get my memory back, if only to figure out precisely what I have to be paranoid about. I mean, I've read my books, and apart from an admirable command of the English language, I'm not quite sure what I was supposed to get out of it. Nothing I documented ever rang any bells with me… there was always a little voice in the back of my head suggesting a very logical reason why this is, but most of the time I ignored it.
Anyway. Lost. (Don't let me get sidetracked again! I've got a lot of ground to cover!) I must have wandered around for one, maybe two, hours. I had a plan of sorts, which was 'wander around until I run into someone who seems to know where they are'. Not the best plan in the universe, but it was the best one I could come up with at the time. I wasn't watching where I was going, as I was far too occupied looking for signs of another person, so when I tripped into one of the many small pools (very deep puddles) I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was. And I was very surprised. Surprised enough to forget that I can't breathe water (whatever my other talents may be) and take a breath, which immediately turned into a swallow-and-choke-or-drown maneuver. This increased my density enough that I hit my head on the bottom of the puddle. (As I've said… this was a very deep puddle. Probably more of a sump.)
No. I'm not a brain trust. Get over that, too.
Anyway, smacking my head on the ground floor of a very deep puddle also surprised me; at least, that's what I tell myself to justify the fact that I tried to breathe again. This time, I managed to swallow a rock as well as water, which didn't exactly improve my outlook on things. It wasn't a particularly large rock, and thankfully it was a fairly smooth one, so I wasn't in any immediate danger of choking on it, but all the same I thought it would be best if I made for the surface.
I am not a strong swimmer in the best of times, and the best of times does not include when I am half-drowned by swamp water and have just swallowed a rock, but the puddle (pool? sump? very small lake? micro-ocean?) wasn't deep enough to cause that much trouble. I managed after a few moments to haul myself out and spit out what little of the swamp water I hadn't swallowed. After that, I would have been content to just sit and enjoy breathing for a few moments. There was something else that was itching my brain and begging for attention, but breathing came first.
You're a bit of an ass, aren't you? asked a voice. Well, I say a voice, but it wasn't really. It was… something speaking directly to me, yes, but not verbally. I'm not quite sure how I recognized that at the time, but I did and the not-quite-voice got the parts of my attention that weren't focused on breathing.
It was a cat. A nice cat, as they go (I'm not really a cat person… come to think of it, I'm not a 'pet' person in general), a grey-and-white tabby with really extraordinary amber-colored eyes. "Wonderful," I said out loud. "I fall into a… whatever you would call this puddle, nearly drown, and now cats are talking to me. At this point I really have to look into finding some real psychotherapy." My voice sounded a little different… all right, a lot different, but I put that down to water-warped hearing. I didn't know whether that actually happened when one had a passing meet with drowning, but it worked well enough as an explanation for me.
The cat blinked. You… can hear me?
"No. That is to say yes, but I don't want to." Because that would mean I really was crazy.
It flicked its tail. Very well then. Give me the Key, and I'll stop talking to you.
"What key?"
The Key, you idiot. It looks like a rock.
A rock? Oh no…. "So… let me get this straight. I have your key, it looks like a rock, and that's why you're talking to me."
You express what I just said very succinctly, the cat answered irritably. Hand it over.
"I… don't think I can, actually. Sorry."
It stared. Why not?
"I think… it was on the bottom of this pool, wasn't it?" The cat nodded. "Thought so. I… swallowed it."
You swallowed it.
"Yes."
The Key.
"You express what I just said not at all succinctly. Look, I really am very sorry I swallowed your pet rock, but-"
YOU IDIOT!! Do you even know what you've just done? The cat was on his feet, hissing and spitting. I drew back slightly, though not enough to send myself back into the pool.
"Swallowed a rock, to the best of my knowledge," I replied a trifle snappishly. My proper hearing still hadn't reasserted itself, and there was a talking cat going on and on about a stupid rock… I'm sure you can see how very irritating it was. I decided to try one of the Cheerful One's more annoying questioning practices. "What do you think I've done?"
The cat's hackles eased slightly, and it settled back down, staring at me unblinkingly in that way that cats have. You... really don't know, do you, it said, mostly to itself. Can you at least use magic?
"Ah. Theoretically."
Theoretically? Yes or no.
"I have the ability... but I don't know how." I felt vaguely ashamed of myself after that admission, and hastened to add, "I've been practicing, and I know a few of the simpler charms."
The cat lashed its tail and flattened its ears closer to its head. I was not an expert at deciphering cat mannerisms, but it occurred to me this was probably something along the lines of weary annoyance. Fantastic. A new Guardian, and it's a teenager with an attitude who 'knows a few of the simpler charms'.
Well, that was frankly insulting. "Excuse me, but I'm not a teenager. I happen to be... oh drat, I knew it this morning... thirty-four years old." I nodded once, decisively. So there.
The cat made a strange sound... I think it was laughing at me. Not anymore, kiddo, it replied. I'd put you at about fifteen.
"No." There's no stronger way to voice a denial. A flat-out 'no' is generally the most effective unless one is dealing with therapists.
I'm not going to argue with you about it. Just take a look in the mirror when we get to wherever you were going. The cat hopped onto my shoulder. You might have been thirty-four before you fell in the Fountain, but you're certainly not now. Well? Get a move on.
I'm generally an even-tempered person. It takes a lot to make me angry, and generally the most people manage to do is annoy me, and at that point I depart their company. But this cat was making me very, very annoyed, and since it was sitting on my shoulder, I couldn't exactly leave. I toyed briefly with the idea of dropping it into the pool I'd just escaped from, but only briefly. I am not a cruel person, and I didn't know whether cats, like dogs, were born with the ability to swim. "I don't know where to go," I told the cat, trying to keep my voice even. I succeeded quite well; it appears that lying is something of a gift of mine. "In other words, I'm lost."
The cat made the laugh-noise again. Stand up. I'll tell you what to do.
Ah, everyone's most cherished dream: to have a tabby cat perched on your shoulder, telling you what to do. I stood up, mostly for lack of anything better to do. The cat kept its balance quite well, managing not to fall off, although its prim sitting-position flattened out to more to a position of being draped over my shoulder, with its back claws digging into my shoulder blade in order to maintain position. Not painful, but certainly distracting. "What next?"
Well, you're not too stubborn, that's something, the cat mused. Concentrate on where you want to go.
"Could you maybe stop digging into my back?"
No. Concentrate.
"All right, all right. I'm concentrating." And I was. Not, perhaps, to the extent that the cat wanted me to, but it was an honest effort on my part. I don't mind saying that I felt like I really ought to have someplace better to concentrate on than the Halfway House.
Now, while concentrating, say.... It paused, thinking. 'Percipio animus.'
"I've never-" I broke off. I had, in fact, been about to say that I'd never heard of that spell, but it had occurred to me midsentence that there were a great many spells I'd never heard of. It was hardly a disqualifying offense. At least it didn't need a wand; I wasn't much in the mood to explain to a cat that I tended to drop it when I was trying to do something. I concentrated, then said with a confidence I didn't feel, "Percipio animus!"
I can't really explain how it felt, since it didn't really feel like anything, to tell you the truth. One second, I had no idea where I was, the next I could probably have guided tours all around Florida, I knew it so well. I have heard other wizards describe how it feels to use truly powerful magic; they usually say there's a surge of pure, unadulterated power, and it leaves them both exhilarated and exhausted. I can't say I noticed any such thing, but then it wasn't a particularly powerful spell. It was powerful for me, though, because I hadn't been able to make anything except the simplest charms work before, and then only when I managed not to drop my wand.
I am not the most intelligent person in the world, though I am tolerably so and can think quickly when the need arises. One thing, though, that I was forced to realize during my time at the Halfway House was that as a wizard I was severely limited. I was not capable of even medium-difficult spells, which that last one definitely outclassed. Please note I said 'difficult', not 'powerful'. They are, after all, entirely different things and while most of the time they go together, it isn't the case all the time. "How... did I do that?" I asked the cat. After all, it seemed to know what was happening better than I did.
The Key, it replied simply. Get going. If we stay here for too long, we're going to have any number of problems.
Lacking anything better to do, I started walking. Since i was no longer lost, the landscpe was much less threatening, and I was actually able to concentrate when the cat started talking again. My name, it said, in the tone of one who is conferring a great privilege, is Richard Aloysius Moncrief III, but you may call me Richard. I have been watching over the Key for the past ten years or so. His claws dug further into my shoulder blade. I had hoped that no one would ever pick it up again, but you have, so you should know a few things.
"Like magic?" I asked dryly.
Richard made his laughing-noise. I actually meant a few things about the Key itself. It won't let you be helpless for long, I assure you.
Well, that was comforting. "I've gone insane, haven't I?"
Not as such, no. You can if you think it will help, though. The claws relaxed, and Richard's tone slipped into one more pedantic, more suited to a lecture hall than a walk through bug-infested wilderness.
In the interests of brevity, I'll sum up his lecture here, subtracting the insults and my occasional questions. The Key was created a very long time ago (this occasioned a brief argument, as I wanted a precise description of when and Richard couldn't or wouldn't provide one) and was meant to act... well, something like a library one could keep in a pocket, or on a necklace, or what have you. Its creator stored all the magical information he knew (spells, history, and such) inside it, and somehow managed to give it the ability to seek out new information and store that as well. When the Key's creator died, the Key took his magical power and stored that as well. Richard wasn't sure why, how, or whether it was supposed to be able to do that, and neither was I (of course) but the difference was that I didn't care.
With its new power, the Key extended the range it could gather information in. It also acquired a new owner, who also 'told' the Key everything he knew, possibly without meaning to. Richard was a little unclear on that particular aspect. As before, when the new owner died, the Key absorbed his (or her) power into itself and again extended its range. This cycle has been repeated throughout the Key's existence.
Understandably, the Key became one of the best-known and most sought after artifacts in existence. It went through roughly a dozen different owners within the space of two hundred years (which in wizard terms is very very quickly, I understand), which served mostly to begin and end a rash of very ugly little wars and increase the Key's power exponentially. At the tail end of this time period, the Key developed an interesting ability as well as a particularly virtuous owner. The Key developed the ability to choose its own owner; when it chose one, it bound itself to that person, and no one else could use it until that owner died. The Key, I think, was probably sick of having to switch owners every time the wind changed and had decided to settle down, but that's just me. The Key's owner, who was tired of the warring back and forth over a rock, disappeared, taking the Key with him. That person, the first person that the Key chose (instead of the other way around), was the first Guardian.
The Key retreated back into myth and was eventually forgotten, and all the while it was changing hands only once every one hundred or two hundred years, sometimes even to Muggles. The Key was used less for squash-thy-neighbor-with-unholy-fire and more to banish, bind, or otherwise get rid of monsters. Those monsters will stay bound until they are released by either the Key or the Guardian, and the Key maintains the bindings quite efficiently.
And so we move quietly through history to the present time. I was apparently the first person in over three thousand years that the Key did not choose. I wasn't quite sure whether that was something to be proud of or very afraid of. I settled for afraid in the certain knowledge that I could be proud later if the situation called for it, but fear would keep me from doing anything too horribly embarrassing.
I was still pondering the pride versus fear question when Richard and I arrived back at the Halfway House. I wasn't particularly fond of the place, but I had been there for just over a year and it wsa the closest thing to home that I recognized, by virtue of familiarity. I didn't walk in right away, as a small problem had reintroduced itself to my mind. Instead, I took advantage of the twilight darkness to hide under a nearby tree.
What are you waiting for? Richard asked impatiently.
"I don't know about cats, but humans don't suddenly age backwards," I replied. "According to you, I've lost about nineteen years. I'd just as soon not have to deal with the inquisition that will go along with that revelation, thank you." Besides which, now that I thought about it, I didn't recall my clothes being quite so large. Very chic, I'm sure, but 'baggy' was not my style. At least I was wearing Muggle-style clothes that day; tripping over the suddenly-too-long hem of my robes would have very limited amusement value.
I thought you didn't believe me.
"I prefer to err on the side of caution."
Whatever. I'll take care of it. Just don't take too long getting to your room.
"What do you plan to do?" I admit it. I was curious. Besides, I had to start learning more complicated things, and the best way to go about it was probably to mimic what I saw other people do.
Richard swished his tail mysteriously. I'm old enough to have picked up a few tricks. Now is not the time for a lesson, kiddo. Just go in, I'll take care of the rest.
Thus chastised, I walked in through the front door, only to be confronted by the Demonic Orderly. "Where have you been?" he growled.
I smiled vaguely. Amnesia hath its privileges, and one of them is that people tend to undervalue all your mental processes, not just your memory. I can't tell you how often that tendency made itself useful. "I got lost," I said in my most clueless tone. "I'm sorry."
"Obviously you got lost." The Demonic Orderly was obviously trying to think of some way to make the rest of my day unpleasant. I almost told him to forget about it, that there was no way he could extract any further negativity from the day. In the end, I think he just got sick of watching me smile like an idiot. I proceeded to my room.
In keeping with the supposedly temporary nature of a mental hospital and the transient nature of most of the Halfway House's patients, the rooms are furnished more or less identically, reminiscent of hotel rooms. There are even two separate nightstands (at least there was in my room) one containing a phone book and the other containing the testament to the sneak-contributor abilities of the Gideons. (Long story)
I seated myself cross-legged on the bed while Richard hopped off my shoulder and prowled around the room. I unkinked my shoulder, watched the cat for a while, then hopped off the bed and wandered over to a mirror.
It was really true. I looked around fifteen; certainly I no longer looked thirty-four. You know how when you're faced with something your mind isn't really prepared to handle, you tend to get hung up in details? It was like that. I went through a list of what was good and what was bad. Good: I'd managed to evade the evils of acne. Also good: I was medium height and build before my unfortunate youthening, and remained so afterward. Bad: I discovered precisely why my fingers have the muscle memory (muscle memory is apparently unaffected by Memory Charms) for curlers. My hair, while still retaining the characteristics I like about it (it's a very nice gold color and there's enough of it that I have no fear of baldness in later life), nevertheless was no longer well-trained and well-behaved. "Well," I said, attempting to sound positive, "It's a change."
You're prettier now, was Richard's contribution. Before I could decide I should be offended or pleased, he knocked a few of my books off the shelf. You wrote those?
I sighed. There was a reason I kept my books on the shelf, mixed in with a lot of other books; they were subjects I tried to stay away from. "I'm told that I did, yes."
You mean you didn't?
I shrugged and started putting them back on the shelves. "I don't know. I may have, but I don't remember doing it." From there, I launched into my by-this-time-well-rehearsed explanation of my lack of memory. Again, I was careful to say that everything was according to other people and that I didn't remember anything at all.
He swished his tail thoughtfully. So you don't remember anything on your own?
"I remember everything that happened since I lost my memory," I answered, probably a little defensively. "There's nothing wrong with my memory, just the amount of information inside it. And there are a few things that have occurred to me while I'm doing something else."
Such as?
"Pixies are bad." I grinned. "Doesn't help much, does it?"
The cat didn't answer, just started washing his face. I pulled a book... a history book, to be specific, off the shelf and started reading it. After about fifteen minutes, I had to put it back. I enjoyed history, usually, but there was only so long I could deal with it. I suspected it had something to do with me having been a writer and objecting on some level to boring, dry language. As an explanation, it works as well as any.
I was interrupted in putting the book away by a tapping at the window. I turned to see a young woman hanging upside down outside my window. This was emphatically not a normal activity for females, in my experience, so it wasn't unusual that my first impression of her be that she was a new patient. At least, until she smiled, revealing teeth that didn't belong on any mental patient. I smiled sickly. I wasn't an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but even I recognized a vampire. The fangs were a dead giveaway, no pun intended.
I think she wants in, Richard commented.
"No, really?" I mentally wired my smile in place and began fumbling around, somewhat surreptitiously, in the nightstand nearest the window. It didn't take me long to find and firmly grasp the book inside, and thus armed, I went to the window and opened it. (I have never been entirely sure why the Halfway House's windows weren't barred; if I were outside, I wouldn't want someone like Carl able to get out and about at will... of course, he probably couldn't fit out the window....)
More bravely than I felt, I presented the upside-down vampire with the book clutched in both hands. "I don't invite you! You can't have my blood!"
She shrugged. " 'Kay."
That wasn't the right response... at least I didn't think so. I risked a peek at the book, then sighed. "The Bible was in the other nightstand, wasn't it." The telephone book went onto the bed, narrowly missing Richard, who hissed and relocated as a matter of principle.
"Probably," she agreed. "I'll wait while you go get it, if you like."
"No, that's all right. I think we've established that I'm more or less helpless." I gestured at the sparsely furnished room. "Mi casa es su casa. Come in." If she wanted to bite me, she was probably going to be able to figure out a way to do it. Besides which, all she really had to do to get in was go in the front door. The Demonic Orderly only gave patients a hard time about getting into the building.
"Thank you." She slipped into the room headfirst, then twisted to her feet gracefully. "I won't be here long, don't worry. I just need to have a little talk with Ricky."
"Couldn't stop you if I tried," I replied cheerily. There wasn't really any point to going and hiding in the closet (once she was invited into the room, the closet was not sacrosanct), so I tried to make the best of it.
She gave me an odd look and addressed Richard. "There's a problem."
Aside from the fact that you seem incapable of using my given name? Abruptly, the cat was gone, replaced by a middle-aged man with grey-and-white striped hair and amber eyes. In fact, precisely what Richard would look like if he were a human instead of a cat, which of course was the case. "What sort of problem?"
I didn't mind being ignored. Really, I didn't. As far as I was concerned, they could do whatever they liked, and if it had nothing to with me, I was just as pleased.
"What other problem do I look after?" she demanded. "Roanoke."
"It isn't eating tourists again, is it?"
"No, not so long's I fed it... it liked Spam. Probably the only thing in the world that does." She shrugged. "No, something else. In fact, everything else. It's gone."
"Gone."
"Yeah." She shifted her weight slightly. "I... called Akuji, but you know how he is. Takes him forever to make the simplest decision...."
Richard-the-person nodded slowly. "I see. Do you have any idea where it's gone, Josie?"
"It shouldn't be able to go anywhere!"
Richard considered, then turned his head and began to consider me. I backed up a step. "I have absolutely no idea what's going on. This is most definitely not my fault."
"Actually," Richard disagreed. "It very well may be your fault."
"In that case, you'll find me in the closet." I suited action to word and locked the door behind me.
From outside, I heard the vampire (Josie) asking, "Who is that, anyway?"
A sigh from Richard. "The new Guardian, apparently."
There was a long silence. Finally, Josie said, "We are so dead."
In the end, I left the closet on my own. Curiosity outweighed a desire to avoid blame, and the fact that Josie took the closet door off its hinges indelibly impressed upon me that vampires are very, very strong. "Now," Richard said, again in his lecture voice. "Pay attention. The Key has been used to bind away-"
"Are you sure he's the Guardian?" Josie interrupted.
"If he isn't, we'll have to get his stomach pumped."
Josie regarded me incredulously. "You swallowed the Key?"
"Purely on accident, I assure you." I explained about the day trip, and getting lost, tripping into what was apparently the Fountain of Youth (although someone ought to sue for false advertising; it's not a fountain at all), and finally swallowing the rock.
She shook her head. "Life hates you."
"I noticed."
"Can we get back to the point?" Richard asked, more than a little testy. "The Key has been used to bind away any number of unsavory occult types throughout history-"
"You mentioned that earlier," I pointed out.
Richard glared at me. "It's my explanation. To continue. One of these beings is known as Roanoke, who is comprised of the spirits of the first Roanoke Island colonists." He took a breath. "The colonists were killed by a wizard in a nearby colony using a spell which is better left forgotten, and as a result they were all piled into one ghost rather than many separate ones. As a group mind, it's always looking for new additions, so it kills people and absorbs them into itself. A shaman of the tribe living on Croatoan Island was the Guardian at the time, and he used the Key to bind Roanoke to the island. As long as it was bound, it was harmless."
And it wasn't bound anymore, I finished mentally. "So what does this have to do with me?"
"The structure of the Key has had to change," Richard explained. "In the past, it's been a tool. A very powerful and versatile tool, but still just a tool. Now, it's actually part of someone. You, in fact. Once you learn how to use it, you wouldn't be able to stop if you wanted to. The structure change must have disrupted its power long enough to free whatever bindings it was maintaining."
"Oh." So it was my fault. Not a pleasant feeling.
Richard glanced at Josie. "You called Akuji?"
She nodded.
"He won't be strong enough to bind Roanoke again. It's gotten stronger over the past 400 years... possibly he could have bound it when it was first created, but not now." He smiled at me, and I took an automatic step towards the remains of the closet. "You, however, are strong enough to do it."
"I wouldn't even know where to begin!" I protested.
"You need to start somewhere," Josie said kindly. "And I'm sure Akuji will help if he decides to show up. Besides which, Roanoke will come looking for you whether or not you go looking for it, I'm sure. The Guardian bound it last time, and I'm sure it doesn't want to be bound again." She slipped out the window, back into the hanging-upside-down position. "So... looks like I'll be seeing the two of you on the island, yes?"
"Yes," Richard agreed. "Expect us within the next few days."
"Don't I get a say in the matter?"
Richard turned back into a cat. No. You have a responsibility.
"You can have it."
I can't. Weren't you listening? You are the Guardian until you die."
"I was listening. I'm just in denial." I flopped on the bed, and Richard immediately curled up alongside, yawning hugely.
Tomorrow, he said in between yawns, you will check yourself out of here and we will head up to Virginia. And then we'll see what you can do about Roanoke.
Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all well that night.