Chapter Seven: Echoes Of Our Tears In The Abyss

It was a small house, though it had seemed bigger when Peter was smaller. Whitewashed clapboards, blue shutters, gray roof with shingles always fluttering off. The porch was painted white, too, and there was a swing on it. He'd spent a lot of his summers on that swing, sipping iced tea, tugging bits of the damp air back and forth, swinging himself while Grandpa laughed.

Inside, he knew, were stacks and piles and cupboards full of things - charm sachets and cuckoo clocks, bits of old paper full of strange writing, silvery coins and walking sticks. Gran would always be shuffling it about, sighing about what a pack rat Grandpa was, but always with a fond smile. Peter would help her a lot of the time, especially when it was a wet day. He'd always loved the smell of dusty old things, especially the books, and Gran would give him one to read while she made lunch. He'd mostly look at the pictures - great swirls of ink, and sometimes faded stains of color, depicting long-dead shamans doing fantastic things.

Sometimes, when there was a storm, he'd get distracted from his reading, watching the rain on the windowpane cast slithering shadows over the wall. Gran would sigh and smile at him, and she and Grandpa would stand on either side of him with their arms around him. They'd stand so close that the three of them cast one big shadow, and Peter would pretend he was looking at the shadows of his parents holding him. He never told his grandparents, though - talking about his parents made them both sad.

They fought for as long as he could remember, and usually about nothing at all. Little snatches of petty bickering and pointless sniping and snapping, and cool disinterest the rest of the time. As he grew older, though, the quiet moments became fewer and further between, until there was hardly a second that the energy in his house wasn't crackling horribly. Gran had tried to explain it to him - she'd told him how in love they'd been, back before their differences started to weigh heavy on them. About how sometimes all the strife and the pain in the world got to people, and how sometimes they chose different paths to try to rectify it.

"But why do we have to choose sides?" he'd asked, curled up in her lap. "Why do there have to be sides? We should all just be nice to each other. That would make everything better."

She'd hugged him tightly then, her smile as wide as he'd ever seen it. "You sound just like your mother," she'd said softly, but Peter didn't see it. He couldn't remember a time his mother was ever nice - just angry and rigid and full of The Right Thing, as full as his father was of The Ends Justify The Means.

Peter didn't like those words. He never had. They sounded awfully cold and cruel.

It wasn't until he'd turned seven, though, that the fighting became more personal than political unrest and social justice. It was about then, when most children begin formal training, that his parents' arguments were suddenly peppered with his name. He could feel them pulling, always, tugging his heart in all directions, heedless of it slowly and surely tearing in half.

Gran had been the matriarch, though, and tradition said she was the one who should train him. He had been so happy when she'd come to pick him up, waving farewell to his parents. He'd felt a bit badly that he'd been so happy to see them shrinking into the distance, but as soon as he'd caught sight of the little white house, Grandpa swinging on the porch, his entire center had eased.

It had been his favorite place - the one place in the world where it was quiet, and calm, and didn't rub at his aura like a cheese grater.

Now Peter sighed, settling against the trunk of his great-grandfather's oak, and smiled. If ever there was a place where he would happily spend eternity, this was it. He rested, for the first time in a long time, letting the sway of the old branches mesmerize him.

A flash of dusty brown amongst the gray branches caught his eye, and everything inside him turned to ice in an instant.

Slowly, the spotted eagle-owl turned its head, golden eyes piercing him. For a long moment, they stared at one another, before she gave a soft hoot, spreading her wings and launching herself from the tree, swooping away over the fence.

No, he thought, but he couldn't make his mouth say it. No, please, no.

He remembered this day. He remembered it so well - the day everything truly fell apart.

"Peter!"

Looking up at Grandpa as he ran across the yard to him, Peter could feel himself coming unraveled at the edges. Grandpa's expression was tight and determined, as it had been that day all those years ago. This day.

Why, though? Had he done so poorly in life that he was doomed to relive the worst day of his life over and over for eternity? Was he in hell?

Peter wanted to scream, wanted to warn him, wanted to do something, anything, to stop what was about to happen.

"Peter," Grandpa said, voice shaking a bit despite his attempts to stay calm. "We're going to play a game, okay? You and I. We're going to play hide and seek."

Peter felt his face twist into a frown, even though he knew now what Grandpa's intentions were. "Cousin Bobby says hide and seek is for little kids," his mouth said. His thirteen-year-old mouth. "He doesn't even play it, an' he's only six."

"I still play hide and seek, don't I?" Reaching out and lifting Peter to his feet, Grandpa smiled. It was a different sort of smile than usual, and Peter didn't like it - it looked sad, and it made his eyes look older than they should. Even then, it had sent strange shivers down Peter's spine. "I'm a lot older than you, so that makes it okay, right?"

Peter nodded. He didn't want to, didn't want to agree to any of this, but he couldn't stop himself. "Okay, Grandpa."

"Now go, hide. Real quick, okay? And remember to tamp yourself down so I can't feel you, just like we always do."

Nodding again, Peter took off for the house. Try as he might, he couldn't will his feet or his voice to obey. He watched, trapped inside himself, as he stumbled into the kitchen and crawled into the cabinet under the sink. Slowly, clumsily, he tamped down his center, gathering bits and pieces of the room's ambient energy about himself like camouflage. Wriggling back as far as he could, he arranged the bottles of soap and furniture polish in front of himself like a wall. He curled up on his side, hugging his knees to himself, and tried to quiet his breathing.

He'd never hated tiny spaces as a child, but after this day…already, Peter could feel his nerves cracking at the closeness, but his thirteen-year-old self just lay there, calmly awaiting the seeker.

Instead of playing, though, Grandpa came to a stop right outside the cabinet. Peter could feel a barrier being woven, and heard the soft, comforting words. "No matter what, Peter," Grandpa said, "you stay hidden. That's the game. No matter what you hear, you stay hidden."

Peter tried, tried so hard, but he couldn't stop himself. "Okay, Grandpa," he replied in a whisper, curling up tighter. They'd done practice drills like this before - vampire drills and poltergeist drills and ghoul drills. Little Peter knew how to hide when needed.

Peter could remember now, as clearly as it had been yesterday, how it seemed like he'd been huddled in that cabinet for hours. Now, though, he could tell that mere minutes had passed when he'd heard his father's voice.

"I have come for my son," he said in iron tones. "You will return him to me."

"He hasn't finished his training, Ellis. You know I can't-"

"Damn it, Jack! Give me my son!"

"Your son?" his mother's voice cut in suddenly. "Since when is he only your son?"

Little Peter curled up tighter, and older Peter didn't even try to stop him. He could feel the tears pricking at his eyes, the urge to bury his face in his arms and cry himself to sleep the way he always did when they started to fight. Older Peter wished he could do so now - it would be better than witnessing this again.

"I knew it, I just knew you'd come storming in here, trying to snatch Peter up for yourself like a goddamned thief," his mother hissed.

"Oh? And what are you doing here, exactly? Come to 'check on him'? Is that why you packed up the car?"

"I'm not going to let you turn my child to darkness, Ellis!"

"You stupid cow! You never understood true power! It's always Light Is Right with you!"

"It is right, Ellis!"

"No, Lydia, it's control! You think everyone has to fall in line, and anyone who doesn't is disposable!"

"How dare you!"

"Stop it," Grandpa roared, causing Peter to flinch. He'd never heard Grandpa raise his voice before, not even the time Peter had dropped a box of amulets on his toes. It sounded like a roll of thunder, and Peter quivered. "Just stop it, both of you! It's no wonder the boy was so glad to get away, the way you carry on."

Peter wished Grandpa hadn't brought him up; it had been better when they'd been fighting about nothing. That was always better than when they fought over him.

"Where is he," Peter's father growled.

"He's out with Diane."

"Then I'll wait."

Peter heard Grandpa sigh, could feel him tugging at the energy of the room, building his strength. From the rustling in the room, he knew his parents could feel it, as well, and were readying themselves.

"No, you are going to turn around and leave. You don't get him back until he's eighteen - you know that. He can decide then who he's going to become."

"After you've poisoned him against us!"

"If anyone here is poisoning anyone, Lydia, it's you and your husband."

"Dad…I just want my child. Don't do this. Don't make me hurt you."

Grandpa didn't answer for a moment. Then, gently, he said, "Lydia, I have never in my life made you do anything. Whatever you do here today, it is entirely your choice, and your consequences to bear."

"Jack, if you don't hand Peter over right now," his father warned, "I will take him by whatever force necessary."

"I'm sure you'll try," Grandpa answered evenly, seemingly unafraid.

Peter was, though, old and young. He could feel the way Ellis was building on his center, the way Lydia was weaving her energy just the way she had on the beach, when she'd struck Peter. He knew what was coming, and little Peter, blissfully innocent though he was, could feel what was coming, too. He let out a tiny whimper, barely audible, but it was enough.

"Hiding him from me, Dad?"

"Yes, Lydia, because I had to. I won't let you-"

There was a cry of rage, and Peter felt the shockwave in his stomach, his hair ruffling a bit in the ripples of power. He clapped both hands over his mouth, stifling a startled yelp, as something heavy thumped against the cabinet doors. For a long moment, all was silent.

"What…oh, god, Ellis, what did you…what have you done?"

"What I had to do. I….I did what I had to do."

Peter reached out tentatively with his aura, feeling for Grandpa, but all he felt was a yawning emptiness.

Grandpa was gone. And that meant…that meant his barrier was gone, Peter realized.

Terrified, Peter reached out again and pushed and pulled at the remains of the tree that still lived in the cabinet doors, yanking and knotting until it was solid, leaves tickling his nose. He could feel his parents prying at the thick wood, and he turned them aside as best he could, pushing and pushing until he felt roots beneath his body, rippling up out of the bottom of the cabinet. He could hear the roof of the little white house groaning and cracking, the window over the sink shattering, the floorboards being thrust upward. He grew the tree around himself, his first real tree.

"Peter! Stop this!"

"God damn it, Ellis!"

Reaching out, Peter grasped his parents' centers and grasped and twisted and tore, weaving the bits he gained into his own center, and pushed it into his tree.

Stop, he told himself in vain. Stop, that's not how it works. You can't do that.

But little Peter didn't listen. He pulled and pushed and grew and screamed all the while.

"Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Go away! Please! Leave me alone!"

He tore at them in terror, draining them, forcing the too-tall, too-big tree up and up and out, until, quite suddenly, he couldn't feel anything to tear at anymore.

"…Mom? Dad?" Quivering, Peter curled in on himself and sobbed.

Older Peter could remember the feeling too clearly, thinking he'd killed his parents out of fear and anger. He remembered the disgust with himself, with them, with everything. But mostly he remembered reaching out, searching desperately, not for them, but for Grandpa.

It was hours before Gran, patiently and gently pulling apart what he'd grown until there was an opening, right where the cabinet doors had been. Tears in her eyes, she'd reached into the small space, knocking the bottles and cans of cleaner aside, and holding her arms open to Peter.

They had run then, leaving behind the house with its blue shutters and its porch swing and its piles of dusty mysteries, leaving behind the too-big hawthorn, and beside it, a small cypress that still felt a bit like Grandpa. Peter had the presence of mind to grab a leaf as Gran had swept him away - all he would ever have left of Grandpa.

They had hidden, tucked away in an apartment in Hartford, until Peter was eighteen. Every few weeks, Gran would get a call, and she would listen with her eyes shut tight, her fingers twisting the phone cord anxiously. She would tell Peter, later that night, that it was nothing to worry about.

When he'd turned seventeen, he'd listened in on the other line, and found out the truth.

"Ruthie wouldn't talk, Diane," Auntie Zelda would say quietly, sadly. "She held out as long as she could, and she didn't talk."

And he knew then that, one by one, his family had placed themselves between Peter and his parents. And, one by one, they fell. He wanted to say something, wanted to make his family stop, wanted them to just stand aside, but he couldn't bear the thought of his parents finding him.

He was so afraid.

When the call came on the night before his eighteenth birthday, Peter listened in silently on the other line. It wasn't Auntie Zelda this time - it was an unfamiliar voice, and it only said three words.

"Zelda's dead. Run."

He'd played along when Gran talked about it being about time to move on, trying to enjoy the early birthday cake she served him after dinner, trying to smile. He'd pretended, all the way to the train station, that he didn't know the real reason they were running again.

He stood by the platform, watching the crowd while Gran slipped off to the bathroom, before glancing down at his ticket. Young Peter knew what he wanted to do. Older Peter wasn't so sure.

"It was a brave thing to do, Pete," Mike's voice said softly at his shoulder.

Suddenly, everything seemed to freeze, and Peter whirled around under his own power. He drew in a sharp breath at the sight of Mike. Or, rather, the sight of a frozen porter, clearly visible through Mike's fairly-transparent form.

"Oh, no, Mike," he whispered.

Mike laughed. "No, no, Shotgun. I'm okay. Lucy was keepin' an eye on you, she said you might need a bit of help."

Astral projection, Peter thought, shoulders slumping in relief. He tried to focus on what Mike was saying.

"You've got a tough choice here, Peter," the Texan was explaining.

"Not much of one," Peter cut in. "I already made this choice, back when I was eighteen. There's no changing it."

"Mmhmm. But that ain't the choice I'm talkin' about. See, Lucy explained it to me - you're kinda in-between right now, and you can either drag yourself back, or…"

Peter breathed deeply. "Or I can move on."

Mike nodded, face twisting into a pained expression. "An' I know which I'd rather you do, but…I can't make the choice for you. Whatever happens here, man, it's gotta be your choice."

Whatever you do here today, it is entirely your choice, and your consequences to bear.

Peter's shoulders slumped. "It's not much of a choice, anyway. I can't just leave you guys to deal with them."

"Don't you worry about us none, Peter," Mike interjected sternly. "We're tougher than you think - we'll be okay, no matter what you choose."

Peter had nothing to say to that - he didn't believe it for a second, but he gave Mike credit for trying. He sighed. "Guess there's no reason the hang around here, then," he said quietly.

Mike stared at him sadly. "Peter…look, man, Lucy told me I wasn't supposed to try to talk you into comin' back - said it wasn't my place. Well, to be honest, I think she's full of it. Of course it's my place. You're my friend, my little older brother, and I'm supposed to look out for you. I'm not ready to give you up yet."

Swallowing thickly, Peter shook his head.

"I really failed you this time, Shotgun," Mike said, hunching his non-corporeal shoulders and sighing through his nose. "I mean, you really needed help here, and I just ran for it."

"It's okay, Mike," Peter tried to reassure him, even though he was pretty positive it wasn't okay. It didn't feel okay, in any case.

Mike seemed to think so, too, because he slumped in on himself even further. "No, it ain't. Look, Pete, I ain't good at all this stuff, y'know? That was all Ma's side of the family, and she never did have much patience for it. I guess I get it from her. I just…" He shrugged. "I guess I just figured maybe Lucy could help where I couldn't, y'know? I shouldn't have run out on ya, though. I shoulda called and had her hightail it out here herself. I shoulda-"

"My younger big brother told me once that you can't 'should' on yourself," Peter cut in suddenly, trying a reassuring smile.

"Yeah," Mike chuckled, returning the smile somewhat. "And, look, we can talk about all this later, but Pete, if you're goin' back, you got a job to do."

Suddenly, Peter felt like he was thirteen again, curled tightly in that musty cabinet, feeling too well the rage and pain that was lashing about. He could feel the rift, incapable of being bridged now, now that Grandpa was gone. And when it had gone quiet, Gran had reached in and plucked him from behind the cleansers. They had both been pale, and shaking, and crying, and she had held him to her for a long time. Then, grasping his face, she had told him that someday, he would have a job to do.

"I can't," he rasped now, his throat tight. "I can't hurt them. I can't."

Mike's spirit reached out and held Peter's spirit to his for a long time. "It's okay, Shotgun. You don't have to."

He gave Peter a gentle shove.

Opening his eyes, Peter gasped, feeling a familiar unfamiliar energy coursing through him. It tingled along his fingers and crackled in his teeth, tasting of dry desert air and the sound of coyotes in the night. And there was something else in it, something slick and cold and strange.

Gathering Mike's offering to his center, Peter rolled up onto his knees and stared at his parents as they strained against each other. They stood still, toe to toe, but Peter could see the roiling, violent battle going on between them clearly as ever.

It would never end, would it?

Whatever you do here today, it is entirely your choice.

It's okay, Shotgun.

Didn't you think we'd still be your friends, no matter what?

Just do your best, Peter.

You have to make a decision here, Peter.

Letting his eyes slip shut, Peter reached out for his parents' centers and grabbed hold. Slowly, trying to ignore their sudden, pained shouts, he pushed. He pushed and pushed, and as he rearranged the very cores of their beings, he couldn't help but lift his chin and look them in the eye.

Peter wondered about them as he watched their limbs twist and thicken and split. He wondered if, when he'd slipped away, they'd run to him. If they'd held him. If they'd tried to revive him. If they'd cried for him. If they'd even given him a second glance. He wondered, as hot tears tracked down his cheeks, if they'd been even the littlest bit sad.

"Peter," his mother croaked, reaching out to him with fingers that twisted and put forth buds.

He wondered if she'd reached out to him like that when he'd been struck. If she'd called his named so pitifully when Gran had swept him away and out of her reach forever.

His father shuddered, bark scaling his jaw as he struggled to open it. "Peter," he rasped. "Peter, please."

'Peter, please.' Had he begged like that when Peter's lifeless body had been sprawled on the ground? Had he called to him, begged him to wake up?

Somehow….

Somehow, he didn't think they had. They hadn't done any of it. In the end, the very end, their war was still more important to them than their son was, just as it always had been.

As their frightened eyes and gaping mouths became knots, and their arms arced high, their fingers entwined and tangled irreversibly, their toes writhing deep into the sand, Peter let out a choked sob.

"I'm…I'm s-sorry," he gasped, pushing one final, determined time. "I'm so sorry. I love you both. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

But trees didn't have mouths and tongues and lungs to answer, and Peter would never know if they heard him, if they forgave him.

He didn't think they would have, anyway.

Slowly, Peter crawled towards the two ash trees, snuggling himself down amongst the roots. He looked up at the branches, his parents' fingers curled around each others' in their new life as they had never been in their previous one. Curling up as tightly as he could, Peter buried his face in his arms and wept.

A/N - AHAHAHA.

HAHA.

Still not totally satisfied, but whatevs.

There is an epilogue and a Part Two teaser coming shortly.