Chapter Four: The Omen In The Oak
"I had a feeling I'd be hearing from you," Gran said before he could even get out a greeting.
Peter smiled despite himself, shifting so that the phone was wedged between his ear and shoulder and closing the bedroom door. He knew that Micky and Davy were annoyed at his secrecy, but this was definitely something he wanted to talk to Gran about without any eavesdroppers.
"This isn't the time for more secrets," Davy had argued, Micky just shaking his head sadly behind him. If Davy's fiery temper had hurt Peter, it was nothing to the quiet, sad acceptance Micky had displayed, like he'd given in. Like he'd given up.
Given up on Peter.
"It's not keeping secrets, Davy," Peter had pleaded. "I always give you alone time when you call home, right? It's the same thing. I promise, I'll tell you all about it, okay? I just…this isn't secret, Davy, it's just private, okay? Please?"
He'd given Davy the task of cleaning Mike's wound and changing the bandage, giving him very detailed instructions and telling him to take it slow to avoid doing further damage. It wasn't a trick, it needed to be done, but it would also keep the Brit away from the bedroom while Peter made his call.
He'd then looked to Micky, trying to think of a task to give him, and found the curly-haired man watching him with calculating eyes. "I'll put some soup on," he'd said flatly, and Peter knew he knew. He didn't understand, maybe, and he definitely didn't like it, but he would let Peter have his space. Peter had always felt that their friendship was tough as nails, but this show of consideration still touched him, and once again he was struck by how much he loved his friends, and how much he hated keeping them out of things.
He had to protect them, though, and that was worth whatever price fate demanded of him.
"Gran, what's going on?"
"Why don't you tell me what's been going on with you?" she deflected. "I haven't heard from you in a month, Sunshine, I was starting to worry."
"Gran…" Peter sighed. It was always like this when he called; she simply refused to talk until she'd heard every tiny detail about his life since he'd last called, up to and including whether or not he'd been eating his vegetables. He didn't have time for that now, though, so he decided to summarize.
"Well, there was an opening for a house band at a local club, and we got that gig, so we've had pretty steady income the last week or so, and Davy's had about seven different girlfriends since my last call, and all this bad energy has just been hanging around, I grew two trees, Gran, two of them, and just yesterday we were flooded with creepy omens like dead sparrows, and an owl stared at Davy, which has me worried, because ever since the ghoul bit Mike he's been really hotheaded - Davy, not Mike, Mike's unconscious - and I'm afraid he might do something rash, and speaking of Mike, I'm not sure I got all the ghoul out of him, so he might wake up craving raw steaks or raw people or something, and if he turns into a cannibalistic serial killer it'll be my fault, and Micky's not even looking me in the eye anymore because he's mad at me for not telling him about being a shaman, and we're all out of milk. I really, really need a glass of milk, Gran."
His grandmother huffed an amused sigh that crackled over the line. Peter didn't see what was so amusing about his troubles, but Gran had always been somewhat laid-back about things. He thought she and Micky would probably get along very well - they had a similar 'if I laugh at it maybe it can't hurt me as badly' mentality. He didn't know how much good that would do anyone this time, though - it was going to hurt, no matter how much they laughed.
"Gran," he insisted, "please. Just tell me what's going on."
"Well, first of all, you get a healer in to look after young Michael. I know you, and I know you wouldn't heal him any more than you had to, to keep him out of danger, and you're not exactly an expert at it. Get someone you trust to probe deep, make sure you got all you could out."
"Of course." He didn't know any healers, especially any close enough to help, so how was he supposed to manage that?
"You keep an eye on the little one, Peter. He's probably scared half out of his wits, and I'm not surprised he's turned it to anger. It'll feel more productive than fear. You don't let him go off on his own, don't let him try to push his nose into this. Anger makes people reckless, and with a death omen hanging over him, he's an accident waiting to happen."
"Yes, Gran." He'd known that already, but Davy wasn't exactly the kind of guy one could keep locked up for his own good. He couldn't tell Gran that, though - she'd only sigh at him again.
"As to Micky…well, I haven't met the boy, but he seems like a good friend. He'll understand why you've kept this a secret, and once he gets over his 'I'm so hurt you didn't trust me' melodrama, the two of you will surely be the closer for it. I know you feel he's your best friend, and if that's true, everything will work out."
Peter wasn't sure how to reply to that. Even as he feared he'd done their friendship too much damage, he hoped that Gran was right. She was the wisest person Peter knew, even wiser than Mike, and she was nearly always right.
There was a moment of silence before Gran spoke again.
"They're in California, Peter."
It felt, for a moment, like the floor had fallen away beneath him, and Peter swayed where he stood. Ice cold horror flooded him, shivering up his back uncomfortably.
"Why," he choked.
"Why do you think, Sunshine? They're there for you. You know they've been wanting to get you to choose sides for a while now."
"No," Peter moaned. "No, no, no!"
"Peter…Peter, you have to deal with this."
"No!" Sitting on the edge of his bed, Peter dropped his head into his hand. "I don't want them here, Gran. I don't want anything to do with them, and they know it. They destroyed everything, Gran. They took away my family. Our family. They ruin everything they touch. Don't you remember last time? Everything we lost?"
"I remember."
"And I've got new family members now, brothers, the best friends I've ever had, and they're gonna ruin that, too! They don't know how to do anything else!"
"Be that as it may, you have to deal with it. You have to make a decision here, Peter."
"I can't," Peter whispered brokenly.
"Peter-"
"This is too much, Gran," he continued, trying to breathe past the sobs welling up in his chest. "It's too much. Can't you come out to Malibu? Won't you help?"
"Life isn't about what's easy, Peter," Gran said sternly, but not unkindly, "and I can't always be there to hold your hand."
"But this...Gran, you can't ask me to do this. I can't take sides-"
"You're not meant to take sides. You never were. Living in the middle is a choice for most people, but not for you. You were born in shades of gray, and you'll die in shades of gray. It's who you are."
Peter bowed his head. "I don't know what to do, Gran."
"Yes," she replied firmly, her voice sounding unimaginably old, even over the phone, "you do."
"Then I don't know if I can do it."
There was a long silence during which Peter imagined a million encouraging words that would magically help.
Then Gran sighed. "I don't know if you can either."
There wasn't much to say after that, so with a final 'I love you' and a melancholy 'goodbye', Peter hung up.
Davy was tucking the quilt in around Mike gently when Peter walked back in, and when he looked up, it seemed as though all the youngest Monkee's anger had evaporated. Peter looked over to the kitchen, but Micky wasn't looking at him - he was staring into the depths of a stock pot, stirring something that smelled infinitely better than anything Peter could have cobbled together.
Sighing, Peter shuffled over to the table and sat down, gesturing for Davy to join them. Their English friend seemed reluctant to leave Mike's side, but with a final clasp of the Texan's hand, he made his way over and slid into the chair opposite Peter.
"Well?"
Peter stared at the table. "It's…really not good."
"Not good as in, broken-guitar-string not good, or we're-all-going-to-die-horribly not good," Micky interjected, the levity somewhat missing from his voice. He still refused to turn around, but his stirring had slowed, and Peter knew he was paying close attention.
"Somewhere in between," Peter guessed, "but probably closer to the second one."
"Fantastic." Letting the spoon fall into the pot with a clatter, Micky finally turned around. "You know something, Pete? When we met, I coulda sworn that you wouldn't be able to keep a secret to save your life. Funny how it turned out that you keeping secrets could have ended it."
"Micky-"
"Whatever, man. The past is the past, right?" Leveling a frighteningly serious look at Peter, Micky shook a finger in his face. "You promise me right now, though, Peter Tork, that you won't be keeping any more. I don't want to wake up one morning to find out you got eaten by gremlins or something."
"That's not what gremlins-"
"Peter."
Looking from one to the other, Peter offered his friends as much of a smile as he could muster up. "I promise I won't lie to you guys about anything ever again."
Davy's eyebrows rose, and Micky shook his head, going back to the stock pot. "Not what I said, babe. Not what I said at all."
Leaning back in his chair, Peter picked at the wood grain of the table. Deep inside, slow and still and having nearly forgotten itself, under layers of varnish and stain, he could feel something, something left of the tree it used to be. It was tiny, frail, and wispy, like a kitten's mewl. It wasn't the strength of his oaks or the familiarity of his hawthorns, but it was something, and he drew comfort from it.
"Their names," he started, "are Ellis and Lydia."
He could feel his friends' eyes on him, and he hunched his shoulders inward.
"Ellis and Lydia," Micky murmured. "Are they shamans?"
"Yes. A dark and a light shaman, respectively. They've been fighting for as long as they've known each other, trying to best each other, trying to gain control for the light or the dark. They're very powerful," he explained, pressing his palms against the tabletop to still their shaking. "If one or the other won, it would seriously tip the balance towards either light or dark, and that would be a bad thing."
"Why?"
Glancing up at Davy, Peter frowned. "What do you mean?"
Folding his arms across his chest, Davy leaned back, as well. "Wouldn't it be a good thing if the light won?"
Peter shook his head. "That's not how it works, Davy. There is no winning, you know? Just a lot of fighting, and as soon as one side gains ground, the other side just starts fighting harder. It get's dirtier, and crueler, and innocent people get hurt." Bowing his head, he admitted, "My family was torn apart by these two. It's all gone now - all I have left is Gran, all because of their stupid war."
"Aw, Peter…" Sliding a chair over next to the blonde, Micky sat down and clasped Peter's shoulder. "I'm real sorry."
Unable to trust his voice, Peter merely shook his head.
The three of them sat in silence for a moment; Micky, arm slung across Peter's shoulders comfortingly - Davy, chin in hand, watching Mike contemplatively - Peter, resisting the urge to burst into tears and hide under the table until it was all over. Then, with a great, exasperated exhalation, Davy stirred.
"Right, then," he said, "what do we do about them?"
"Nothing," Peter nearly shouted, jerking up in his seat in alarm. "Davy, you can't get in the middle of this, they'll really hurt you guys!"
"I don't like how you're not including yourself in the not-getting-in-the-middle thing." Tilting his head until he caught Peter's eye, Micky narrowed his eyes. "If you're staying out of it, we will, too, but if you're thinking about wandering between these two characters, there's no way you're doing it without us."
"Guys-"
"And that's not negotiable," Davy added with a determined nod.
"But-"
"So I you're planning on doing something, we have to know about it, and you have to let us help."
Groaning, Peter ran his hands through his hair. "I can't-"
"And if the plan is to hole up here until it blows over, then that's what we'll do."
"And if you even think about sneaking off without us," Micky warned, gesturing with his spoon as he went back to the stove, "we'll sit on you until you change your mind."
Peter had no doubt they would, but he knew better than to think that Ellis and Lydia would just go away. They were in Malibu to sightsee, after all. They were there for him, and he knew that if he didn't go to them, they would certainly come to him. He shuddered at the thought of either of them being near his friends.
But he'd promised not to lie to them anymore, mere minutes ago. He'd said he wouldn't, and that meant he couldn't.
Instead, he just shook his head. "I haven't decided what to do yet." Absolutely the truth. "We could get out of this without having to deal with either of them." Strictly speaking, they might be able to…if they moved suddenly, or died without warning before the two shamans could get to them. "And if not…well, we'll figure that out, I guess."
Davy and Micky watched him carefully for a long moment before they nodded in tandem, apparently satisfied with his non-answer.
Dinner was a quiet affair. Neither Davy nor Micky seemed inclined to bring up the current situation, and Peter was too lost in thought to try to make conversation. Several times, one of them would glance over at Mike as though hoping he'd miraculously woken up, but he continued to sleep deeply, recharging as best he could.
Peter really wished he would wake up so the shaman could ask him what to do. Mike always knew what to do.
Davy insisted on sleeping in the armchair so he could keep an eye on Mike, even though Peter had tried to explain that Mike would be fine, that he was just gaining back his energy. He gave up after a while, secretly relieved that someone would be keeping watch.
He watched Davy settle into the chair, listened to Micky trudge up the stairs to his own bed, and when he was certain they were both asleep, he slipped out of the house. Rounding the property, he checked and rechecked his wards and barriers, building them up. Ellis and Lydia knew where he was, so making the Pad light up like a beacon wasn't a concern for him so much as giving it the best defense he could was. It wasn't much - it probably wouldn't keep them out at all - but it made him feel a bit better about letting his guard down enough to sleep.
When he was awoken again, he thought for a moment that it must have been them crossing into his territory. No one was shouting, though, no one had burst into his room and tried to drag him away, so after a tense moment, he relaxed enough to roll out of bed and investigate.
He quickly found the source of his discomfort. Someone had crossed his barrier, all right. With a sigh, he picked up the bunched up quilt and tossed it back onto the couch.
Michael was gone.
A glance at the armchair confirmed that Davy, too, was missing. Quietly, so as not to wake Micky, Peter slunk upstairs and peered into the drummer's room. He breathed a small sigh of relief when he spotted the man, curled up on his side and breathing deeply. So, it was just Davy and Mike, then.
It wasn't long before he found Davy, though, because he spotted the smaller man as he rounded the Pad, leaning back against one of Peter's oak, staring up at the stars and deep in thought.
"Davy? Davy, where's Mike?"
"What?" Jerking his gaze down to Peter, Davy pushed away from the tree, alarm written across his face. "What do you mean, where's Mike? He's on the couch, right where he's been since we carried him home." As Peter shook his head slowly, he could see panic gripping Davy tightly. "What…what could have…"
Davy pelted around the corner and up the stairs to the balcony, slamming through the door and stumbling to a stop in front of the couch.
"Peter…"
Standing just behind his friend, Peter clenched his fists.
"I don't know, Davy."
"Peter, he's gone."
"Yeah. That one I knew."
Davy looked back at Peter, helpless terror flashing in his eyes, and Peter could only shake his head.
Michael was gone, and Peter had no idea what to do.
A/N - Uh-oh. That doesn't bode well.
