Author's note: Enjoy! This chapter might be a little rough. I wrote it a little fast. Should have put this in the last chapter but trigger warning for implied mentions of kidnapping and sexual assault.

Happy July 4th to all my fellow Americans!

Chapter 54

Raili

Anna slept a little, but it didn't feel like actually sleeping back home. Home? In Halloween. Not home. Her mind felt more restless. Too restless. She couldn't keep her eyes off the lantern and the soul within.

Jack had asked for one hour, but it was many hours of silence later that Anna realized she was afraid of the lantern.

She wasn't one-hundred percent why, but she theorized it had to be because of the ability to trap souls. Potentially dangerous. Could the woman inside escape if she wanted, or did Jack have to choose to let her out? The potential lack of agency for the woman freaked Anna.

The fire had long since died, but it was still night. Or early morning. She wasn't sure, and she didn't care.

She stared at the lantern before she wasn't able to stand the carved little face grinning at her any longer and stood up.

Jack didn't stir as she tread through the charcoal corpse of the old fire. She left black footprints in her wake.

Oh, now she was leaving footprints?! Anna brushed off the annoyances and kept walking over a snowbank and then up a hill. She wasn't anxious about getting lost.

Maybe it was the long silence, but she found she was a little more open to sensing things around her.

Jack's aura was rippling like quiet, dark waves in the back of her head. And the voice in the lantern was giving off its own buzzing aura. Everything still felt faint, like she was straining to hear the muffled noises of whispers through a door.

Anna was constantly aware of in what direction she left her companions. There was nothing else around. She heard the occasional animal, the aura and colors a little more "pure" feeling. But they were distinct from the ghosts.

She was essentially alone.

All the trees looked the same and she could imagine humans getting lost and never finding their way out. The thought was a little sad, but she remembered the woods back home. She went camping relatively often with her family. Still, people got lost in that forest every year.

Lily had mentioned a Windigo.

What was Anna's family doing now? What was the aftermath of that fight with the demons? Were James and Jillian okay? What were her parents doing?

Anna kicked a branch in her way and kept walking. She winced as a breeze came through and stung at the open wounds. Even moving hurt. Staying still hurt too, so there wasn't much escape either way. Maybe it was the stupid awareness that made her solid enough to feel the worsened pain.

Something is watching.

It took a disturbing amount of self-control not to halt in her steps. Instead, she kept moving like nothing was wrong. But her spine prickled, and she felt eyes trail her as she moved between the trees.

She walked. There was a grove of bushes to her left.

The slightest crack of branches and she lunged.

It wasn't a very graceful attack, but her hands snagged something as she and the intruder crashed through thorny bushes and tumbled down a hill. Branches tore at her clothes and flesh, and she squeezed her eyes shut, keeping her hands clasped on her victim.

The flurry of white, grey, and dead-tree-brown slowed, and Anna finally opened her eyes. She gasped.

A small rabbit stared up at her, trembling in her hands.

"Sorry!" she said frantically, pulling her hands away. Guilt sunk in as the rabbit stared, frozen in terror. "Shoo?" She twitched her hand at the rabbit and whimpered as the thing scrambled away into the brush, limping and leaving a faint trail of blood.

There was a wry chuckle.

Anna scrambled to her feet, tripping over the snow. She glanced back at the slope she had fallen down.

"You've killed it," a voice said. A shadow passed between the branches out of the corner of her eye. "It's vulnerable to predators now."

Anna turned, barely able to track it as it skipped between shadows oddly familiarly.

You aren't special. I can do that too. Most of Halloween can Fade. It's a handy trick.

"Who's… Show thyself." Pfft. Guess I'm mimicking Mira. It was just a reflex to not use her own voice. She wasn't sure why, but she'd rather stick with the illusion, although she didn't adopt the accent very well.

The shadow shifted again. "What bravery for a creature like you."

Annalise's bloody eye sockets tracked the movement fairly well in the dark. "There's no one like me. I'm just…" What am I, actually? "… me."

"Is that so? Then what do you call yourself."

"My name isn't important." It wasn't. Not in this time. Not really. "You though? If you're so intent on stalking us… stalking me… you must be important. Important or very bored. I can't image why someone like you, whatever you are, would take it upon themselves to waste their time spying on a couple of lonely ghosts."

"Ghosts?" Now the shadow's voice switched from bored curiosity to something that might have been genuine interest. "Is that what you two are? My, what a strange ordeal."

Anna's eyes narrowed. There was an itchy feeling, like she had given away something she shouldn't have. "Why?"

It was silent for a moment.

Annalise turned around, looking for the figure again.

The voice cut through the quietness, sounding like it was directly behind her.

"Ghosts don't tend to look quite like you. And ghosts certainly don't travel, my dear."

Anna, to her credit, didn't react or jerk away from the voice that seemed to whisper in her ear (what was left of it). She grimaced at being called "dear." She had a cautious opinion before, but something about the tone made her decide she didn't like whoever this was. She was sure this wasn't any citizen or such that she would know in the future. They felt too unfamiliar, but familiar in a "wrong" way. They "felt" like the fae she met mere hours ago by her time. This was Fae. This wasn't a "monster" like she understood a monster to be.

"Sorry t'disappoint," she said sarcastically, laying on a bit more Celtic in Mira's voice. She didn't turn around. "We do. I don't see why that's any of your business, stranger."

She heard what sounded like branches creaking and turned just in time to see a section of trees disconnect from each other. She stared at the giant, now something more familiar tickling her mind. But she didn't react in fear.

The beast, with knotted woody skin and gleaming eyes, leaned just barely into the moonlight, peering into her soul.

He was looking for something in her eyes.

Anna couldn't help a small smirk. What was he finding?

Zelda had taught her how to sense when someone was trying to read her mind. It was a useful thing to know. She also taught Anna the very basics of how to combat such mind reading. The next hour with Zelda was practicing how to silently scream with earsplitting volume in her mind.

Many of the shop patrons went to Helga to be rung up that day.

In the present, the tree giant jerked back slightly and Anna's off-putting smile widened.

Zelda also taught her how to list random, confusing things and images attached to them so it confused whatever actual thoughts she had.

This fae creature was probably confused by the imagery of rush hour traffic in Yomen, Washington. Cars were likely a strange sight.

The stranger spoke as if nothing had happened. "This is my forest, child. As are all the souls that dare venture inward and never leave."

The images in her mind faltered for a moment as she thought about the lantern back at camp.

Oh no.

"Well… we're not staying. We're just passing through."

The forest spirit leaned over her a bit more. "Woodcutters. Soldiers. Merchants. Weary travelers who wish to take a byway from the safety of the road Man has cut through the land. Children."

Annalise felt her bones cinch in anger. Children? Children?

"All say the same thing." It lowered its voice and stared at Annalise. "Just passing through. And all remain with me."

Anna mouth turn down as she clenched her teeth, her hands shaking as she pressed them to her sides. "That's changing."

"Oh, is it?" The spirit moved to her side, circling her.

"We do not care who you think you own."

"Hm. That spirit your companion carries in his..." The spirit suddenly chuckled at the absurdity. "Vegetable… is mine. You have no right to take it."

Right?!

"Her. She is a soul. A person."

"It's intriguing you equate a soul with a person. Human, you mean? There are many beings above, upon, and below this land that have thoughts and even spirit, but no souls. Tell me, who are they then? What worth have they? What worth have creatures like you or me. You speak like a human but I see no soul in you either."

"Maybe it's not for you to see. I don't know. But I do know your filibustering has nothing to do with the soul that my friend is carrying. We're taking her out of this forest of yours. She doesn't belong to you."

"You are very wrong, child," the being laughed, darting behind her faster than something of its size should. "Besides, you think that soul is the only one trapped in my woods? Do you mean to save all of them? Will you find them all?"

Maybe she was being too forward, but she ground her teeth and didn't back down. She heard her own jaw click at the pressure. She thought of other souls floating around these woods. Lost. Amusements to this thing. Especially children that never made it home.

"My friend isn't going anywhere. He has time. Do you?" Anna retorted, not really thinking through her words. She clenched and unclenched her fist and her eyes burned with hatred, staring at the thing in defiance.

She stepped back as the fae growled, her words hitting some kind of nerve.

"Is that a promise?"

What promise? I didn't make a promise. What does he think I'm saying?

Anna didn't have a chance to answer as black and orange fire slammed into the side of the being's face.

Wood crackled and burned as embers dug into the cracks and crevices of the face and arm.

There was a screech of rage, but Anna barely heard it as Jack shoved the lantern into her arms.

"Run."

"What?"

"RUN!"

"W-Where?"

"Just go. Do not stop until ye are clear of the trees. I'll find ye. Now run!" Jack shoved her out of the way as a dead tree crashed down, barely missing crushing the two of them. She didn't want to know if it could have actually hurt them. Jack was on the other side and Anna could only see the angry gaze of the forest spirit, and not Jack.

"Do you need Hades on your tail, Taibhse?! I said run!" Jack shouted, out of sight.

So she ran.

"RAILI! You cannot leave, Raili!" the spirit screamed after her. "You can never leave! You will never find them if you leave, my love!" It laughed. A vicious, mocking laugh.

Anna shuddered, but didn't look back to see if it was following. There was so much malice and anger in "my love" it made her insides twist in disgust. Sucking in a painful icy breath and holding the lantern close, she Faded. It was much harder than the last time she did it. Trees raced by at hundreds of miles an hour, and she did not know if she was approaching an exit or speeding deeper into the forest.

The voice in the lantern panicked at the speed but Anna couldn't hear the cries.

She flew as an inky shadow until the trees thinned, and white expanse peeked through the branches. A field and a road beyond. Or was it a river? It was hard to tell in the dark. Whatever the case, she went toward it. It didn't feel like the safest idea, however. A road or a river meant people. If she was still human, that might mean safety, but now?

She was too preoccupied by her trajectory that she didn't see the cliff. The forest ended but only at a steep drop-off that led to the fields and hills.

It must have been a comical sight, seeing a corpse materialize out of a shadow seconds after it shot out from under the cover of the snow-laden trees, then immediately tumble down a steep and rocky incline about a hundred feet.

Anna stayed still at the bottom for a couple of minutes. She wasn't going to look at the bloodstain surely streaking down the cliff face. Let it be a story for some poor bastard walking his sheep or something. She was definitely more of a skeleton now.

"That's… that's enough falling for today," Anna moaned, laying in a puddle of snowy, muddy slush with sticks and frozen straw stabbing her. She crawled through the snow-mud, feeling the tall, dead grass underneath. She pulled the lantern out of a shallow crater.

"That… what was that?"

"An escape that was more dramatic than I should have made it," Anna said, wincing as she tried to stretch and shove a fleshy rib back into place. A burnt piece of meat on her arm drop off while she watched. She grimaced. "Ow. Who-what was that?"

"I don't know." The voice didn't sound sure as Anna brushed off the lantern. "A-and you! You! What were you doing? Challenging a Fae?!"

"Is that what I was doing?" Anna said. She gritted her teeth. "I'm sensing a pattern."

"Foolish. Foolish foolish foolish."

"You sure you don't know who that was?" Anna interrupted. She glanced around, uncomfortable being out in the open. There was no cover to hide unless she dove into a snowbank.

Keep in mind, she was getting used to it but everything still fucking hurt. Couldn't all her nerves just decay already? Better yet, couldn't she just be left alone in Halloween and not have to put up with this nightmare randomly every time she fell asleep?

"I…!" the voice started to argue, but trailed off, bewildered.

"When some people die," Anna said, shifting while she tried to decide what to do next. Where was she going to meet Jack? How would he find them? "They can lose their memories. Lose bits of themselves. Does the name Raili mean anything to you?"

The voice didn't answer. The Wind blew and Anna wondered if it was watching her, but it didn't speak.

Eventually Anna started walking. She just picked a direction. The river seemed a good idea, but halfway there she decided that probably wasn't a good idea. If there were people around. What the hell was she getting involved in?

The winter sun peeked over the hills, but there was still no sign of Jack. That anxiety was creeping in. Anxiety of being alone. Not knowing what do to. A guillotine of some kind of responsibility hanging over her as she kept the lantern close.

In some way or another, the soul inside was in her protection, but she had no clue what to do.

Fuck this shit. She complained silently, but kept walking and kept the lantern tucked against her chest.

Near some tall snow capped stones, Anna closed her eyes in an attempt to listen for any humans or others that might be nearby, although she wasn't fully sure what she was looking for. But the air felt clearer. She didn't have the feeling of being watched by the trees in the distance.

Of course, any moment she had to properly think was going to get interrupted.

"I think… I think that was my husband."

Helluva interrupted.

"Oh….well shit."

"Pardon?"

Anna shook her head and winced. "Stercore. You were married to a Fae?"

"Not…not in the eyes of the Church, I'll tell you right now." There was notable distaste and pain in the voice.

It was silent as Anna walked, protectively holding the lantern as if the forest spirit was going to pop out and grab it away.

"It's horr—It's a pleasure to meet you, Raili. If you don't mind me calling you that."

"…I don't. It's not a name I think that demon owns." There was another pause."My apologies. My memories are…"

"I understand," Anna said softly, "Raili, Jack mentioned he knew your story. Do you know your story?"

"Pieces. I didn't know details like my own name or… how long I've been dead." Raili's voice cracked. "O-or the other names."

Anna awkwardly filled in the silence. "You… um… you had a child, didn't you…?"

"How do YOU know about that?" Raili demanded.

Too annoyed—possibly at Chakis—and too tired to think of a lie, Anna said, "I've… uh, read your story."

"Read? You can read? What cursed learned man would put my story down on parchment and mar the permanence? Only priests or kings' sons can read."

"Where I come from, pretty much everyone can read. The time I'm from, most of the world has access to education. There are exceptions, of course…"

Anna found a group of rocks with an overhang. Some shadowy cover, at least. She wasn't worried about the sun hurting her, but the light felt off. That human fear of being uncomfortable in the dark was flipped on its head, except it wasn't some instinct of fearing a predator she couldn't see, but of being seen.

Anna set the turnip on a rock.

"I would like to be let out now."

"I don't really know how to let you out," Anna admitted, picking the vegetable back up and turning it around. There wasn't a latch or anything.

"Jack didn't teach you?"

Anna scoffed, but continued her inspection. "Jack didn't teach me a lot of things. Although I suppose he might. If I let him."

Silence stretched, and Anna knew Raili was waiting for an explanation.

"You're very like him, you know."

Anna's expression twisted, and she froze to glare at the lantern face.

"You seem a troubled kind of spirit."

"You don't say."

"I have some thoughts to share, if I may."

"You're going to share if I want you to or not."

"Perhaps."

"….Fine."

"I've been… lost… for a very long time. My memories are addled. But that thing in the forest—my 'husband'—struck some chord within me. Hearing his voice. I gained some memories, although they are still weak. I had barely started my life, and he took it from me. My life with the Fae was Hell. I wondered what I had done to deserve any of it. I was pious. I was obedient. I thought I had done everything I was supposed to."

"Except you made a deal to save someone you loved and got cheated."

"I am truly disturbed by how much you seem to know," Raili snapped. She huffed, calming down. "I thought I was making the type of sacrifice I was expected to as a good person. A dutiful, sacrificial wife-to-be. I was a fool."

Anna frowned and looked away and out at the snow-covered field.

"I stayed up many nights. Waiting for someone to save me. I had a betrothed. Every day I expected to see him in the woods, looking for me. But he never came. I never once wished the fate I had on another, but I had one wonderful light in my life. I had a son. But you know that. Evidentially."

"Didn't know they were a son," Anna corrected.

"I can't remember his name," Raili's voice faltered. "I… just can't. I can't remember what he looks like but I know he was a beautiful child." She tried to sob, her voice wavering."H-have you ever lost a child? Are you a mother?"

"No," Anna said hesitantly. "I've never had any. I am still a… kid… technically. My parents lost me. And I lost them in my death."

Raili paused for a moment and Anna got the sense she was curious about Anna's age.

"I've done horrible things, Spirit. Some of it was insanity, but it all was me, nonetheless."

Anna couldn't help a small smirk. "You're monstrous and you have a story to back you up."

"Monstrous?"

"I don't mean it anyway 'bad'," Anna said. "The place Jack is taking you? Not all the people there are human. A lot of them are stories. Just stories. Whether they were human or not is kinda secondary. I doubt anyone cares if you killed people." Anna grimaced. "They move away from that in a few…centuries…"

Raili, once again, didn't seem to know what to make of that.

"I do have a point, Taibhse. I heard you speak to the Fae back there. I heard the anger in your voice. The conviction. The willingness to fight for some lost souls you don't even know. It overshadows whatever anger you have toward Jack. There's a choice you have to make."

Anna glanced at the Lantern, racking her brain for whether she mentioned anything related to the Citizenship she had to decide about. She didn't think she would mention it, and Chakis might not have let her anyway.

"When I say you and Jack are alike, that's what I meant. He didn't hesitate to defend you, or me, the second he sensed danger. I don't know if you were aware, but the Fae was about to attack you. Fae don't like to be threatened with mortality. You implied he would die. Or at least that Jack would outlast him. Fae—and gods—take implications they are mortal as insolence. Remember that."

Anna mutely nodded. After a minute she asked, "What do you mean, I 'have a choice'? I'm being dragged around everywhere against my will. I don't have many choices."

"And you think I do? I'm trapped in a turnip."

"… sorry."

"But I do have choices. I chose to be put in here."

"It's….not the same thing. Jack gave you a choice? Didn't he?"

"He did indeed."

"I'm never given any choice in any of…." She gestured vaguely. "O-of this. My life. Death-whatever!"

"There's your mistake."

Anna froze. "What?"

"You think you need to be given choices. Do you see the error? Choices are things you make, Taibhse. Not something to be waiting for like a beggar's scrap."

Anna didn't say anything, pressing one hand against her knee.

"You know more of my story than I could possibly know of yours. But I stand by what I say. You have the choice to dictate your own fate or let yourself be defined by others. Your anger at others. Other's betrayal. Other's claim on you. I did that for a long time. Blaming the world for my pain, even as I killed humans who came into my part of the woods. Blaming Fae. Blaming love. Blaming my village and the boy my freedom was stolen for. I made the choice to come with Jack. I chose the promise of a second chance. I don't expect that it will answer my prayers. Or that it will be the existence I had planned, but so long as I chose my fate, it's step in the right direction."

"You're wise for a dead lady," Anna muttered. She didn't think Raili had a good grasp on her personal situation, and Raili admitted that, but that wasn't really the ghost trapped in the lantern's fault. Annalise's existence was a little complicated, as clear by the very fact she was not even in the right century. But she probably would not win an argument with Raili either.

"I suspect you and I are fairly close in age," Raili said. "My head feels clearer out of the forest. I might not have had such wisdom under the boughs. It's very strange. All the lessons I might have learned over the years, addled by my insanity, are latching into place. Very strange. Hindsight is turning into a blessed thing of death."

"Oi! What are ye doing?"

Anna yelped at Jack's voice. She whipped her head to see him leaning over their hiding spot.

He gestured for her to get up. "On thine feet. We still have a long ways to go." He looked a little roughed up. There were char marks and scratches in his clothes. He was missing a shoe, although Anna couldn't remember if he had it to begin with. He didn't seem to notice he only had one. He was missing his walking stick too and kept moving his hands like he wasn't sure what do to with them. He seemed fidgety and irritable.

"What happened?" Anna blurted as he gestured for the lantern, which she passed over without an argument.

"I fought with the patron spirit of that bit of forest. And he's a right bastard of a king. What else?" Jack said.

"… Did you win?"

"That's yet to be decided," he said. "Next time ye decide to wonder off and not completely disappear, please stop engaging with creatures more powerful than ye. If ye please." He turned away muttering.

Anna vaguely heard a low, "thou art a blasted thorn in my side, dear granddaughter." She stiffened, but really wasn't sure how to respond or if she should call it out. She let it go for now, awkwardness lacing her steps now. She forced a distrustful glare at Jack. She was finding it a little annoyingly difficult to forget Raili's mention of Jack rushing to protect her.

"She does that often, does she?" Raili said in amusement, whom Anna could hear without holding the lantern now.

Anna didn't give it away, though. Neither of the other two seemed to realize she could still hear the soul. She fell in line, walking behind Jack.

"More than she's aware at the moment," Jack grumbled.

"I'm right here," Anna reminded.

"I'm well aware, Spirit."

"You two are gossiping about me, aren't you?"

Jack scoffed. "Come. There's a place we can pass through nearby."