Chapter 9: Coming Home?

Sorry, guys, I've been trying to upload this for a couple of days. The site is messed up, or something... it kept not letting me.

Across the sky
I will come for you
If you ask me to
Demystify
Your uncommon dreams
Stranger things have come true

- 'Across the Sky', Emilie Autumn (an excellent song)

When Kat was very small, her mother had loved to take her little hand mirror and hold it up in front of her, taking Kat's round little chin in her hand and squeezing it close to her own so that both their two faces could be seen in the circle of glass meant for only one. She had smiled, her cheek pressing against Kat's, and Kat had felt obligated to smile as well. Even when she was a child, she'd understood, somehow, that this ritual was something that her mother needed to do. Smiling back seemed like a gift, easy to give. Still, she'd always felt just a little uncomfortable when her mother did this, as if she were nothing but a doll being propped into the right place.

And then, when Kat was ten, she'd walked into her parents' room and found her mommy sitting in front of the vanity, staring at her lone face in the much larger mirror, a small pile of whitish powder on the counter before her.

That, Kat now thought, had been the beginning of the end. Drugs were only the catalyst that, after six more years of dealing with each other, finally shoved her parents apart for good. Kat knew that any shrink worth his salt would say that that was the reason she hated her mother: that betrayal, at such a young age, had started a landslide.

Which was bullshit.

Truth was, Kat didn't hate her mom. It was more... disgust. Maybe some shame. A whole heaping of contempt.

Now, looking at the woman standing before her, Kat felt her face stretch into the familiar forced smile, the lines and angles of her features pulling themselves into line.

Mattie Kessler was thinner than Kat remembered, even though it had only been a little less than a year since they'd seen each other last. Her hair, as dark and thick as Kat's herself, was newly short. It feathered around her head in a gelled pixie cut that looked strangely out of place. Her arms were crossed, her hands cupping the opposite elbow.

Beside her was the other half of the 'we': a tall, average-looking man who Kat assumed was Thomas Rainier, the man that her mom had theoretically left her father for, and that Kat had never met.

There was an awkward pause.

"Kitty, it's nice to finally meet you," the man said. "I'm Tom Rainier."

Right in one.

"It's Kat," Kat said.

"What?"

"My name. It's Kat, not Kitty." Her mother grimaced, but said nothing. Tom Rainier shrugged.

"Sure, Kat. Whatever you want. Anyway, your mother and I are happy to let you stay with us for – How long did you say you were coming for?"

"I didn't," Kat replied.

"Don't be bitchy," Mattie admonished softly. Kat looked at her.

"What? It's not like I lied or anything, Mattie."

"Please don't call me that."

"Why not? It's your name. I want to be called by my name, so why shouldn't you be called by yours?"

"Because I am your mother." Kat decided to let that one slide, figuring she had antagonized them both enough for the first five minutes.

"Fine. Well, thanks for letting me stay. I only really need a place to sleep, so you probably won't be seeing me much. Don't let me get in the way."

"You aren't-"

"That'll be fine, Kat," Tom interrupted, glancing at the shorter woman beside him. She fell instantly silent. Kat frowned a little, but let Tom point the way to the hour-long parking lot where he pressed a keypad and unlocked a powder blue Camry.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Kat muttered beneath her breath, but dropped her bag onto one side of the back seat and slid in on the other. The ride to where her mother and this stranger lived was short, but the fifteen minutes of silence was agonizing. Kat sighed, closing her eyes and trying to think about Reid. She was doing this for him. He'd better damn well appreciate it.

The house was the same, a neat little suburban deal with a nicely-kempt lawn and a little block of garden flanking the front door. A cheery bell rang somewhere in the house when Mattie pushed the door open. Kat paused in the small foyer briefly, noting the places where pictures had once hung and were now gone.

"Your old room is more or less the same," her mother said, gesturing with her head towards the staircase. "The bed might need new sheets."

"Whatever," Kat threw over her shoulder, climbing the stairs and taking the few steps to the first door on the right. There was a bathroom across the hall, and a closet at the very end. If everything was really the same, then Tom and Mattie would be sleeping two doors down on the left.

Kat pushed her door open, dropping her bag and surveying her territory. The posters she'd had on her ceiling (Evanescence, Muse, Three Days Grace, Kiss) were gone. The faux-wood-framed painting of a woman naked from the waist down, her back to the viewer, still hung above the window. There was still a patch of wall covered by multicolored handprints, the acrylic paint they'd been made with long since dry.

Her bed rested against the far wall, facing the door, and her desk was pushed up in the corner to the right of the bed. There was still a cordless phone plugged into a holster on the desktop. Other than that, the room was empty.

"Yeah," Kat said on another sigh. "More or less the same."

She kicked her bag a little further into the room, reached into her pocket to pull out the folded piece of paper she'd shoved in there what seemed like so long ago, and plucked the phone out of its rest.

Reading the string of numbers written on the paper, Kat dialed and waited. After a long moment of tenuous connection, Caleb's voice came on the line.

"Hello?"

"Hey. It's me."

"Where are you?" She looked around, once again taking in the mostly-blank walls, the stale-looking bed, the clean desk.

"I'm not sure," she murmured.

"What?"

"California," Kat said, louder. "Sorry. I'm in Agora. My hometown." She lowered her voice. "This is where Mary Harcortte first started hunting me, so I thought it would be a good place to start. Also, I can stay with my mom and that'll give me a bit more freedom than if I had to hide out in some hotel."

"Yeah, cool," Caleb said, sounding a little distracted. "Agora with two 'a's?"

"Right."

"Ok. Ok. So we've managed to prove that Mary kidnapped you. Or at least that we didn't have anything to do with it."

"Oh, good. How'd you do that?"

"Well, there's your dad. He's helped us out a lot. Did you tell him anything?"

"...No," Kat said finally, guilt seeping in. "Just that I knew what I was doing."

"Uh-huh. Well, don't worry; we haven't let anything slip. But he's assured the cops that he talked to me right after you went missing, and that he helped me and the others organize a search team during the time you were being held. The times match up so that we couldn't possibly have gotten you to that house and gotten back to your dad in time. So that's good. We're still working on the whole murder thing..." The mournful tone in his voice made Kat laugh despite herself.

"Sorry, sorry."

"Any news on your front?"

"Other than that I'm here? No. Well, wait. When I was in the airport, some guy attacked me."

"What?"

"No, no, I didn't know him. I don't think it had anything to do with... But... I dunno, it was just weird. And there was this dream..."

"A dream?" Kat blushed.

"Never mind. Just me going crazy."

"We've got enough crazy folks around here, thanks," Caleb snapped in what should have been a joking tone... but it fell somehow short. "Listen, you – ok, we – don't really know what Reid is capable of. We don't know what he wants, or whether or not he's even in control at this point. And if he's not... Those powers are scary, Kat, when they're unleashed. He could get into your mind easily." With a shiver, Kat remembered the fight with Reid when he'd put that image into her head, so quickly and effortlessly. The dream...

"Yeah," she said shortly.

"Just watch yourself. And call me if anything else strange happens. If anything feels weird to you, or not right, or if you see something that shouldn't be, you know?"

"Check."

"Ok." There was the tense, but not entirely awkward, silence that meant that the conversation was over. Kat could tell that Caleb was trying to figure out how to say goodbye, and did it for him.

"Watch your back, Magic Boy. All you guys."

"You too." She hung up, dropping the phone back into its holster. Kat folded her arms, rubbing them with cold hands. Her cut palms throbbed mildly.

"Ok," she said aloud to herself. "Let's find some witches."