PLEASE READ: This is the fourth installment in the five-part Daughter of Darkness series. I suppose if you're a rebel you'll read on anyway. Good for you. If you're interested in the other three, head to our profile - Rebels, Rejects, and Redeemable, respectively. Thanks.
DISCLAIMER: So Rick still owns PJatO. And HoO. John Rocco owns its art. Disney is responsible for publishing. Etc.
REVIEW RESPONSES (from Redeemable's Epilogue):
Sir Hoden: Well, here ya go! Hope you like it. The last wasn't a favorite of either of us, but we're glad we weren't total failures!
Cbarbs: Haha I checked that for typos twice and didn't see that! And yes, OF COURSE we celebrated Halloween! I was Lawliet L and Nic was... was... Well, I'm not sure what she was, and I'll explain why in the AN. And, aha, I think it's probably for Nico's good that Will doesn't give him slack due to his past... Dang. I mean, we didn't pair him with Nico, but... dang. SPOT. ON. He's also one of my favorites to write.
oOo
In her lost-count-long-ago years, Abigail Abbkins had never felt so old.
She'd wondered if her most recent charges would do it for her. To see the kin of her kin, to find little echoes of the girls she'd glimpsed through an alcoholic haze, to watch them bounce and run and fight and live with spring and fervor and contemporary slang and sharp tongues… contrast would be a given, wouldn't it? But no. They'd made her feel more alive than ever.
It'd been a long, long time since Abigail had to watch after children. Even longer since she was trusted with them.
So what was it? What set a flat tension to the air, what cursed this old house into terrified silence?
It wasn't depression. She knew that well. Depression made everything impossible, and hopeless, and most of all stale. That was not what she felt now. No, now things had a new taste, but it was there, and it was sharp, and somehow she knew that the most basic fundamentals of her world had shifted off in some shady peripheral.
She was certain that she hadn't really aged in a while, not physically since she was about fifty, and not mentally since she was a teen. It's not like she was any sort of adult by this point.
Well. For one thing, 'old' could imply a wide variety of concepts – ancient, wise, withered, outdated, absurdly quotient, grand, aged, no longer of use, respected, moribund…
That last one was close enough, Abigail figured. Moribund. Never once, not even when wallowing in the depths of bottle and suffocating in empty anti-depressant 'miracle' containers, had she felt so near her end.
Logically, that was ridiculous. She knew very well that she wouldn't be dying anytime soon, not as long as she had charges to watch over. But while logic was definitely something to marvel at from a safe distance, it wasn't something to worship. She had learned to trust her gut.
Well. On most things.
Uneasy now, for no one ever had enough time to prepare themselves for the fear of Thanatos (let alone lost-count-long-ago teenagers), she set her mind to what she usually did when she felt slightly disturbed. She thought of her latest charges.
The biotic ones.
Maybe I'm lucky I missed out on mothering Rose and Brenda. The worry I feel for these four was plenty. Imagine waiting for that demon to return home every night, she snorted. Until that night, she had thought she knew what it was like to be overwhelmed with emotion. Joy, despair, love, heartbreak.
But nooooooo. These crazy kids had outdone her lost-count-long-ago years all in one night. Christmas night, of all things. At first, she'd been irked that there'd be no proper family gathering. And then she'd started to wonder what on earth could be keeping Hunter and the others from free gifts and a plethora of meat on the stove and their favorite candies in the stockings. And then she'd begun to pace, so distraught that she had more trouble navigating the house than Neil, and then she'd seen the news stories about the earthquakes in LA…
Hunter was definitely Rose's child. Full of spite and spunk and devious brilliance. At the same time, though, she had been everything that Rose was not; kind, good-natured… a mother. Sometimes, Abigail liked to imagine that she had similar qualities buried somewhere inside her, not just Rose's darker ones.
Now, if Hunter could be traced to Rose, Bree might as well have actually been Brenda. Quiet, smart, concentrated (though not always on reality), observant. Brenda and Bree were both also Abigail's obvious offspring; an artistic eye, a resigned pessimistic mind, always striving for something they could never quite reach.
Brook was, as far as Abigail could figure, Hunter's daughter. And Bree's. Quiet but spiteful and brilliant but reserved. There were times when they didn't know it but they would sit with Brook somewhere between them and fall silent as the smaller girl began to play with Moon or fiddle with her hair or run her fingers absently through the carpet and there would just be silence, respect, casual observance, until she was done and the others were free to store the moment and move on.
Rarely did one sister move without pulling the other two with her.
To think that she could have lost all of them that night. Every white grin, every shy giggle, every stupid wolf, each beloved bow stroke.
That night, Abigail felt like a mother. Perhaps not a good one, not yet. But a mother, which was much more than she could've said at any prior point in time.
Oh, and to think that Maria's little boy could have gone with them-
Abigail chided herself. They were children, whether they liked it or not. But they were far from little…
…Whether she liked it or not.
Ice crawled up her spine.
She snapped out of her mind with a coldly practiced precision and listened for one, two, three minutes…
Whatever it was, house or demon or human(oid), it had stilled again.
She did not, though. She knew when something was wrong.
Slowly, she stood up and left her chair to rock alone. Through the guest room door. Into the kitchen. Her eyes seemed to jump without jumping, focusing on her peripherals without actually moving to focus.
Not one detail out of place. Thirty-four books on the right shelf, twenty on the left. Fifteen boxes in that corner, with one missing the tape. Nine pictures crammed behind them or hung drunkenly on the wall.
The kitchen, now, she had grown used to seeing changes in. The fridge had been opened very recently without her knowledge. She could tell by the slight hum that had to work harder to compensate for the heat and the way the door was not just closed firmly but pressed very, very shut. Slammed with an elbow, an afterthought in the rush for food.
Hunter.
Before turning to the living room, her eyes grazed the clock. Three in the morning. Then she took in the warm yellow light and all-but-muted television playing A Christmas Story and the candy strewn across the carpet as if it'd exploded out of something. Amid the wrappers and chocolate and various crumbs and even a few forgotten Sixlets were two girls. Neil had fallen asleep in his chair, with his mouth hanging open.
Abigail sighed heavily. "I sure hope you don't expect me to vacuum this."
Hunter's mouth curled into a lazy grin as she lifted her head. "'Course not. That's what we got Nico for."
"Yes," Brook slurred her agreement, lifting up a tired fist. Next to her, a silver wolf smiled and nodded. On either side of this wolf were two smaller ones; one grey and one white as fresh snow. The new pups stayed sound asleep.
At Neil's feet, Antonio the Seeing Eye Dog began to snore.
"Hunter," Abigail said as she stretched, as if casual, to let them know if wasn't too serious. "Would you mind doing a perimeter check?"
The girls were suddenly very much awake. Hunter sat up and her golden eyes – they were Rose's but not Rose's – shone and then she was gone. Brook curled around her wolves and stroked the young ones reassuringly.
Sylvester bolted from beneath the couch to Abigail's feet. She scratched him behind the ears. Jealous, Teddy and Ozzy ran up and began to bounce around her knees.
"Down!" she said, and the dogs kept jumping. "Down!"
Sylvester, feeling rather bold on this night, tackled them for her.
"Good boy!" she chirped, and stroked his head.
Hunter chose that moment to return. "I didn't sense anything."
"Alright," Granny said, and this time yawned, though she was far from tired. "Just making sure we checked before we went to sleep."
"Sleep," Brook agreed, pumping an exhausted fist again.
Hunter brought her sharp eyes from her to Abigail. "…Where's Nico? I thought he was just spending a moment with her, but it's been an hour."
She'd been scared to go check on her own. Abigail mulled over this for a moment before dismissing her first horrible thought; no, it couldn't have been about Bree's health. She'd double-checked herself. And gods knew Nico would do something if he noticed something so much as seemingly out of place, and he knew his sister pretty well.
Besides, if Hunter suspected Bree of growing worse… She would have gone in. Immediately.
So what kept you? What scares you, Hunter?
Was Rose scared of the same?
"He fell asleep," Abigail answered with a wave of her hand. "I was just watching them."
Hunter's sharp eyes glinted to the space ahead of her and she went to go look for herself. Any thoughts she'd had at the moment were as distant to Abigail as Pluto was now.
The planet. Not the god.
She tailed Hunter at a slower pace, not because Hunter was in a rush but because Abigail did have a few creaky joints, and she was old, and her stride was shorter. The blonde had halted in the doorway and was watching with that unreadable gaze.
Her eyes were no longer bright or sharp.
"Something the matter?" Abigail asked curiously, as if it weren't obvious.
A long breath, a much longer one than someone Hunter's age should ever have to give, pressed out of her lungs. "No. Not a thing."
She stared for two more minutes before leaving. Abigail returned to her rocking chair.
What was wrong, tonight? Her mind began to work not over space but across the timeline, everything since the children had returned.
Nothing odd about the shadows as they came in. Hunter would have noticed, even after the energy toll. Bree… In her state, maybe, maybe not. Nico, with his sister in such a state, should not have been counted as any different. But somehow she knew he would have known if something rode in on their tail.
Next had come the lecture. Not much of one. She still had to create a real, guilt-inducing rant for the day to follow, actually. What'd happened upon their arrival was a furious yell and from them a relief so great obvious it hurt her to watch it. Because they'd only had two minutes of Christmas Day left and they – especially Bree – were still in a lethargic recovery mode, Abigail had allowed celebration to commence.
She had eaten more than she'd like to admit. But hey, ham tasted great when she made it…
Neil had outdone her, though. She could always berate him for it instead of herself.
The hungry demigods had, however, put them both to shame. And then came the stockings, so that they could munch even more on even unhealthier things as presents were exchanged and opened. The television glowed so that they had the movie playing in the background to hide the wind of the storm outside. Abigail had taken a few pictures but not many, because she knew Neil couldn't see them. He hadn't looked too worried before the children came home, but when they did… When they did, he'd demanded one be hugging him at all times, and was constantly asking wise grandfatherly questions such as "Ever had a Werther's caramel?" and "Do you plan on saving the wrapping paper? I can hear what a whimp you're being! Kill it!"
Hunter had played chess with him. Nico, between watching over Bree and Brook, had supervised this with a very grim sort of curiosity.
Abigail was not sure what had happened between him and Hunter, and much less if it was good or bad, but she kept her hands off it.
It'd have been easy, in theory, for something to sneak in while they were making a mess beneath the Christmas tree. Even Abigail had allowed herself to be distracted, only checking now and then, and only once or twice going to check on Sylvester and the dogs to see if something had them spooked. They were her early warning system, and they hadn't failed her yet.
Was it possible they had, tonight, in all the excitement?
"Darlin'?" Neil asked, drawing her from her thoughts.
She glanced at him. He loomed in the doorway, half-open eyes unbelievably alert for a blind man. "Hey. Sorry."
"Did you want me to check, too? The things the kids wouldn't?"
"Wait until they're all asleep," Abigail advised. "I'll help ya."
Neil nodded and stepped far enough into the room to rest a thick hand on Bree's shoulder, after fumbling around on the sheets for a moment or two. Then he left. Antonio waited for him patiently in the kitchen.
…Yes, Abigail decided. If someone had gotten in, even as unlikely as it was, it'd been during the opening of presents.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be truth.
Present time had ended when Moon got too tired to pester Nico and Brook had fallen asleep, which tended to instantly tranquilize the others. Bree had nodded off not long after. After a moment of over-protective panic, Nico had decided that with her wounds she ought to sleep in a real bed and not slumped over between the couch and the chair.
Her bed was upstairs. Nico probably could have led or carried her up there, but he was a reasonable kid, as far as Abigail had seen. He did not risk it. And so five minutes later when he hadn't emerged from the guest room, she'd waddled in to investigate, and found…
Well, the same scene she was at now, only her mind had been peaceful then and allowed her to soak it in and start her idle rocking. Somewhere between waiting for her to fall back asleep and returning to the others, he'd reached his limit, and had the instinct to curl up on the bed next to her before passing out.
And so here they were. She was positive no one had entered or left while she'd watched them sleep. That, she was sure, she'd have noticed.
So it came as they reveled. Quickly, silently, skilled enough not to rifle the animals. What had it been?
And what had they taken?
Neil's footsteps sounded. She let her ears travel with them, each one, through the living room, into the kitchen, hearing the house speak and calculating exactly where each foot landed. Knowing the moment he stepped onto carpet, and with which foot he did so.
"They're asleep," he announced.
"Alright. Coming," Abigail said, and rose from the rocker once more.
Neil gazed in her direction, without blinking. "Hunter said to check on them. She said Nico's been out most of the day and shouldn't be so sleepy now."
Abigail gave him a strange look and half-wished he could see it. "You do know we keep the ashes in this room, right? Maria's are third from the left. Her blessing-"
"Well, yeah. But when Hunter wakes up…"
Abigail sighed. "We could tell them the truth."
He was quiet and patient as she came to her senses. She mulled it over before shaking her head and sighing. "Never mind. I've been watching them for ages – they're fine."
Neil shrugged and went to the dining room, the place he usually started. Abigail checked the guest room, because she could do so quietly, and the last thing they needed was one of the kids waking up. Especially Nico, who in this room wouldn't need but a moment of suspicion to discover the truth about their hoarding.
Her hand ran along the shelf with the urns. Nope, nope, nope… Off to the boxes. Not a speck of dust out of place. In the closet, things hung indifferently, the same old clothes she hadn't worn in years with the same old nostalgic and disgusting scents.
She pawed through them, then got on a stool to check on the tallest surfaces. Still nothing out of place.
As she started to search the kitchen, she heard Neil's heavy footsteps shuffling around. Only his footsteps. She could still remember, if she tried, the days when these searches would be accompanied with bangs and scrapes and startled exclamations from him.
She owed Neil a lot. She knew it. And he owed her. And there was no other person she'd rather share this burden with.
They covered all of downstairs quickly. Then upstairs they went, examining every bookshelf and windowsill, beneath every couch, behind every pile of junk, the hollow places in the wall, beneath every last layer of bedding. Inside Bree's violin case. In the secret compartment of Hunter's dresser.
There was something there that Abigail knew she wasn't meant to see. She closed it quickly.
"Abby…" Neil warned.
"I know. I'll check the storage room. Watch the kids." Back down the stairs they went.
Neil stopped in the living room. Abigail went on.
There were towers and towers of boxes standing in here, looking down on her stoically from the darkened seas of dust. She did not turn the light on as she moved about them.
Fingers trailed across bumpy, bulging cardboard. Eyes caught every glimmer of light against tape.
The nearest tower. Then the one to the right. Then the one behind. Not a box, speck, or molecule out of place.
Off to the bookshelves hidden in the back, then. She shoved aside two paper roof-scrapers and used her pointer finger to touch each and every spine.
Yes… three here, all one-inch spines, then three two-inch, then a five…
Her finger found empty space.
Oh?
These books had been obedient for seventy years. They had not moved. Which one…?
She knew, though, before she looked. There was a negative space of dust on the shelf, between a teepee of other tomes, innocent but so horribly empty it was like staring into a well-dressed black hole.
One book was gone. Books, technically, but all bound to one spine.
She closed her eyes and ran her fingers along the covers of the surrounding volumes, comforting them, sharing their grief. But they could not possibly, in a million years, emphasize with hers.
Of everything in this house to steal, it had to be that book. Her first failure had to be now, as her children were about to march off into some stupid danger once again.
The feeling of age returned, very suddenly, and she was rocked by the sharp desire to have the books back. Not just them but everything – Rose, and Brenda, and the kids unscathed, and Neil's eyesight, and a cigarette. And most definitely those books.
But no. They were gone, and they weren't coming back.
The Syllabine Books were gone.
oOo
Nyx: So... This was done days ago. But as I've mentioned, Nic and I live a whole nation apart, so... (imagine me trying and failing to whistle, resulting in a lopsided raspberry noise) internet and phone problems means no communication. Nic hasn't read this yet. I waited as long as I could... But I promised it'd be up and so here it is...! Tada?
Oh. And y'all. You're lucky she ain't here. She had some questions. Nobody's interested in what Nico gave to Hunter that scared her so much? Something he wrote? He isn't a rhetoric, and that sure as heck wasn't a story. That was my idea, but showing you that scene was hers. And this one... aha...
I know you guys love Abigail/Granny. I thought it was time you got to know her. (Troll lol lol lol, lol lol lol, la la la...)
Hope you enjoyed. Give me a minimum of one more week to work - we came across a plot hole so big we've got to do some major re-figuring. I haven't even started chapter one. But trust me, despite the communication errors, we're working on it!
Oh. And. FNAF.
I WENT TO CHUCK E CHEESE'S AS A CHILD. I SAW THE BANDS. FNAF HAS REVIVED MY WORST NIGHTMARES. I WOULDN'T PLAY BUT THE BACKGROUND PLOT IS SO DANG GOOD. LOOK IT UP IF YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE THE DEMON MACHINES. DEATH TO BONNIE.
Hm, is there anything else y'all need to know? (thinks very hard) The letters in LOVE can be rearranged into LEO V. Next time you eat brownies, or cake, take a rhombus-shaped slice from the isolated center of the pan. For amusement and general good feelings about humanity, look up the vine "When Mom Isn't Home." Oh, and virtual stroganoff and snicker-doodle cookies to anyone who can find a minimum of three allusions to Gone (by Michael Grant) anywhere from the prologue to Rebels to the first three chapters of Razed! There's plenty there, trust me!
I think that's all. Time for me to go. 'Til Chapter One!